



■ 



8 



*mi 



181 



8 



HHM 



iHDyfBiSS 

ElHHiS 



BBWW gH 

Hlfflsl 

ImfffllB 



HI 

w HI 

HI fHH 



m W 

H8HHB9 

HI 

■ m3L WM& US 

w HI 
m Hi i 















v^ "^ 






•V 



■St. 









•\ 



-** <f 






v : 



p < 









<^ '->, 






■ 



<t 



























& 























% 




























^4- 








^> 






>^ 









V v 







































^ 




























■^ 
























% 
























Ot- V 























++ 


-\ 








i 
















X 
























•^ 


i 













■^ V s ' 



^ - 









^ V* 1 









^ ^ 






■ 






C^ 



^ 






ESSAYS 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH, 



PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE, 



THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF ALL EVIDENCE 
AND EXPECTATION. 



4, -r~^~^7> 

" &ifr-»Tii£ AUTHOR OF 

Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions. 



PHILADELPHIA— R. W. POMEROY. 




1831. <*;< 









v 



PREFACE. 



Few words will be necessary in introducing the 
present volume to the public. 

Some of those who did the author the honour of 
testifying a favourable estimate of a former Essay 
of his on the Formation of Opinions, expressed at 
the same time a regret that he had passed too 
lightly over one very important part of the subject; 
namely, the conduct of men in the application of 
their means and faculties to the investigation of 
truth. While he had explained more or less to 
their satisfaction in what manner the mind is af- 
fected by the circumstances in which it is placed, 
and the inevitable determination of its views by 
the evidence presented to it, they thought that he 
had indicated in too cursory a way the duties of 
mankind in the collection and examination of that 
evidence, the effect of which, when once brought 
before the understanding, is so completely uncon- 
trollable by the will. 



Vlll PREFACE. 

In consequence of these suggestions he applied 
himself to the subject, and produced the treatise 
on the Pursuit of Truth, which stands first in the 
volume, and which he presents to those who took 
an interest in his former Essay, in the hope that it 
may prove a not unacceptable companion to it. 

In respect to the second Essay, he has only to 
offer a remark on its external appearance. It is, 
as the reader will observe, in Dialogue, a form not 
very frequently used by modern writers in the ex- 
position of philosophical views, and adopted on the 
present occasion rather by way of experiment than 
from any opinion of its preferableness. After con- 
sidering what has been said by Hurd and others on 
the employment of real or fictitious, ancient or 
modern names, he has preferred designating his 
speakers by simple letters, as being less repulsive 
to the taste than any other expedient, except that 
of using the names of eminent characters of past 
days, which he was precluded from adopting, be- 
cause the opinions expressed in these conversations 
have reference to the actual times in which we 
live. This is a point after all of little importance 
in philosophical discussions, since the parts of the 
dialogue assigned to the different speakers are in- 



PREFACE. IX 

tended to exhibit opinions rather than character, 
and may be considered as only embodying in lan- 
guage the various views which successively present 
themselves to the same mind in reflecting on the 
subject selected. 

The third Essay embraces topics which the 
author can scarcely hope will attract attention, ex- 
cept from that small number of intellectual men 
who have turned their thoughts to the considera- 
tion of the foundations of human knowledge, a sub- 
ject included along with many others of vital, 
although unappreciated importance to society, un- 
der the repulsive appellation of metaphysics. By 
these few, however, he ventures to hope that the 
treatise will be found of some interest, if not from 
the absolute originality of its views, (on which it is 
not for him to pronounce,) yet from the novelty 
and regularity of the order in which they are ex- 
hibited. 

With regard to the whole of the Essays, he may 
venture to offer them to the public, and particu- 
larly to the friends who have expressed so indul- 
gent an opinion of his former volumes, as the result 
of long continued, if not always successful reflec- 
tion. The greater part of the volume indeed was 



PREFACE. 



written out for the press four or five years ago, 
since which it has had the benefit of repeated 
scrutiny and revision. He mentions these circum- 
stances, not to disarm criticism or to preclude 
animadversion, but as establishing a title to a care- 
ful and candid examination from his readers, espe- 
cially from those who may see reason to differ from 
the conclusions at which he has arrived. 

March, 1829. 



CONTENTS, 



ESSAY I. 

ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH, AND ON THE DUTY OF INQUIRY. 

Page 
Chapter I. Introduction. Importance of the Subject, 15 
II. On the States of Mind favourable and un- 
favourable to the Pursuit of Truth, 22 

III. In what circumstances Inquiry is a Duty, 30 

IV. Examination of certain Prejudices adverse 

to Inquiry, ----- 38 
V. On the Duties incumbent on Mankind in 
the Pursuit of Truth, or in the Process 
of Inquiry, ----- 50 

VI. On the Influence of the Institutions and 

Practices of Society on the Pursuit of 
Truth, - - * - - - 71 

VII. On the Spirit in which we ought to com- 

municate and receive the Results of 
Inquiry, 80 

ESSAY II. 

ON THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Part I. ------- 95 

II. -«-..._ 109 

in. .--.-._.-. m 



Xll CONTENTS. 



ESSAY III. 

ON THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF ALL EVIDENCE AND EXPEC- 
TATION. 

Page 
Chapter I. On the Assumption implied in all our Ex- 
pectations, that like Causes will pro- 
duce like Effects, or of the Future 
Uniformity of Causation, - - 153 

II. The Uniformity of Causation is assumed 
with regard to the Past as well as to 
the Future, 159 

III. The Uniformity of Causation cannot be 

established by Experience and Testi- 
mony, --.--. 168 

IV. The Uniformity of Causation is assumed 

in all our conclusions respecting Men- 
tal as well as Physical Phenomena, 173 
V. Our Certainty and Uncertainty in relation 
to Moral, are of the same nature as in 
relation to Physical Events, - 179 

VI. Illustrations of the Truth unfolded in the 

last Chapter, .... 188 

VII. On the Uniformity of Causation as the 

Fundamental Principle of Physical and 

Moral Evidence, ... - 195 
VIII. On Possibility, Probability, and their Op- 

posites, ... - 210 

IX. On Necessity, - - - 217 

X. Conclusion, ... - 230 



ESSAY 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 



AND ON THE 



DUTY OF INQUIRY. 



ESSAY I. 



ON 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 

In the progress of society remarkable changes 
inevitably take place in moral sentiment. Actions 
formerly regarded as of trivial moment, grow into 
importance ; qualities at one time extolled sink into 
dubious virtues, or even positive vices ; new duties 
are evolved from the novel situations in which men 
are placed ; and the code of morality is amplified 
with rules which would have been unintelligible at 
a previous period, because the circumstances to 
which they are applicable had not then arisen. 

Such are all rules relating to the conduct of men 
in the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge. So 
long as science had no existence, as mankind were 



16 INTRODUCTION. 

solely occupied with providing for their physical 
wants, or were continually engaged in the rougher 
work of mutual depredation and hostility, the pur- 
suit of knowledge as a distinct object could not 
have place, and consequently the virtues and vices 
connected with it were unknown. 

In our days a different posture of affairs presents 
itself. The acquisition of knowledge has become 
an object of immense interest and importance. The 
welfare of society in a thousand ways is deeply im- 
plicated in the rectification of error and the disco- 
very of truth. Hence new relations arise ; new 
obligations are constituted, a career is opened in 
which men may display numerous virtues and vices, 
in which there are various things to shun and to 
perform, and in which therefore we are called to 
discriminate and select. 

It happens in this as in many other matters, that 
the moral sentiments of mankind are tenacious of 
their accustomed course, and reluctant to take a 
new direction. When men have been long habitu- 
ated to look on any quality with approbation, they 
can scarcely divest themselves of the feeling, even 
though they discover the object no longer to deserve 
it; and they are slow in bestowing the same senti- 
ment on qualities and actions by which it has not 
been familiarly excited. Thus the glare which has 
so long dazzled the human race with regard to 
warlike qualities and military achievements, still 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

continues to bewilder them into an admiration of 
actions incalculably destructive to human happiness. 
Mankind have yet attained to no sound moral feel- 
ing on the subject, and it will require the reiterated 
efforts of philosophers to work into their minds the 
proper sentiments, with which the conqueror of 
nations should be regarded. 

A similar remark may be made in reference to 
the pursuit of truth. Men at present lamentably 
err in apportioning their moral approbation and 
disapprobation to the actions of those who are en- 
gaged in intellectual efforts. They frequently smile 
on conduct which is fundamentally vicious, and 
pour their indignation on such as ought to warm 
them into admiration and applause. Nor are such 
mistakes to be wondered at. The morality of the 
subject, besides being comparatively new, involves 
some nice distinctions, which cannot fail to be gene- 
rally overlooked or confounded, till they have been 
clearly discriminated, and rendered plain and fami- 
liar by repeated expositions. In the following pages 
an attempt is made to ascertain and enforce the 
duties of man, in a matter so closely interwoven 
with his welfare, as well as to point out the erro- 
neous principles which have sometimes been sub- 
stituted in their place. 

It is hoped that an honest and fearless endeavour 
to trace what our duty is in relation to inquiry, will 
not in the present day be ill received. There is a 

2* 



18 INTRODUCTION. 

growing disposition in the world, amongst the intel- 
ligent part of it at least, to prize truth and veracity, 
to look with disdain on all artifice, disingenuity, and 
disguise ; to regard the business of life no longer as 
an affair which demands unremitted intrigue and 
perpetual deceit ; to consider the great interests of 
humanity as not requiring to be supported by igno- 
rance and superstition ; to believe that suppression 
and concealment can be of no service, except to the 
few at the expense of the many ; and that every im- 
portant question should be freely and boldly ex- 
amined. In this state of feeling on the part of men 
of cultivated minds, a discussion of the conduct 
which we ought to observe in relation to the pursuit 
of truth seems to be peculiarly appropriate, and 
even if it fail of yielding entire satisfaction, may 
serve as a groundwork for more successful efforts. 

As when an object is of little value we are not 
greatly concerned in what manner we pursue it, the 
importance of this discussion evidently depends on 
the value of truth itself, on which, in the present 
day, it is scarcely necessary to insist. That it inti- 
mately concerns mankind, that not only the pro- 
perties of external nature, but the consequences of 
human actions, the effects of different agencies on 
our sensibility, the results of the various combina- 
tions of society on individual happiness, the relations 
of man to other beings, should be precisely ascer- 
tained and accurately understood, is a proposition 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

so undeniable when clearly expressed, as barely to 
escape the character of a truism. The overwhelm- 
ing importance of this knowledge, is attested by the 
sad tale of error and suffering, which every page of 
history presents to our observation. What possible 
problem can mankind have to solve but one, how 
to make themselves conjointly as happy, and for 
that purpose as noble-minded and virtuous as they 
can during the short term of their mortal existence ? 
And how have they hitherto solved this problem ? 
In what numerous ways have they proved them- 
selves totally blind to their real interests, perverted 
their resources, exasperated the unavoidable evils 
of their condition, and inflicted gratuitous and un- 
profitable misery on each other and on themselves ? 
It is clear that men can have no interest in suffer- 
ing, no preference for unhappiness in itself, and 
wherever they are found in headlong career after 
it, it must be under an impression that they are in 
pursuit of a different object. It is error therefore ; 
it is illusion ; it is an incapacity on their part to see 
the real consequences of actions, the real issues of 
events, that gives rise to all those evils which deso- 
late the world, except such as can be traced to the 
physical circumstances of man's nature and condi- 
tion.*' 

* " Error is the universal cause of the misery of mankind," 
are the first words of Malebranche in his Treatise on the Search 
after Truth. 



20 IMPORTANCE OF 

The prevalence of misery, as the consequence of 
ignorance, shows at once the paramount importance 
of the pursuit of accurate knowledge. To discover 
truth, is in fact to do good on a grand scale. The 
detection of an error; the establishment of a fact; 
the determination of a doubtful principle, may 
spread its benefits over large portions of the human 
race, and be the means of lessening the misery or 
increasing the happiness of myriads of unborn ge- 
nerations. The great interests of mankind then 
demand, that the way of discovery should be open, 
that there should be no obstructions to inquiry, that 
every facility and encouragement should be given 
to efforts which are directed to the detection of their 
errors ; and yet one of the greatest discouragements 
which at present exists, is the state of their own 
moral sentiments. Although he who has achieved 
the discovery of truth in a matter of importance, 
has the satisfaction of reflecting that he has con- 
ferred a benefit on his fellow men, to which time 
itself can prescribe no limits, the probability is, that 
instead of attracting sympathy and gratitude, he will 
meet with a considerable share of odium and per- 
secution as the consequence of his perspicacity. 

A state of things in which the real interests and 
moral sentiments of the community are placed in 
strong opposition, cannot fail to be fruitful in evil, 
and he would perform no slight service who could 
hasten its termination. The likeliest means of doing 



THE SUBJECT. 21 

this, is to show in a clear light what our duties in rela- 
tion to inquiry really are ; or, in other words, by what 
conduct, in reference to the investigation of truth, the 
general interests are best promoted. Tardy as man- 
- kind show themselves in all changes of moral sen- 
timent, they cannot permanently continue to bestow 
their approbation on qualities clearly proved to be 
pernicious, nor withhold it from actions, which are 
shown to be undeniably calculated for their welfare. 
The subject has never yet, as far as the author 
knows, been systematically treated in the point of 
view here described. Locke, indeed, in his Conduct 
of the Understanding, has thrown out excellent re- 
marks on some of the topics which it embraces ; 
and his treatise, which cannot be too warmly re- 
commended, breathes an admirable spirit of right 
feeling and sound judgment, in relation to the pur- 
suit of truth. Malebranche, too, in his celebrated 
work, De la Recherche de la Verite, abounds with 
instructive observations, encumbered nevertheless 
with antiquated matter and exploded doctrines, 
through which few in the present day will venture 
to toil. Neither of these distinguished writers, 
however, looked at the subject in the particular 
light in which it is the object of the following pages 
to place it; and even if they had, the lapse of a 
century and a half may be presumed to have brought 
us into a more favourable position for viewing it in 
its most important relations. 



CHAPTER II. 



ON THE STATES OF MIND FAVOURABLE AND UNFAVOUR- 
ABLE TO THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

As the. principle object of the present treatise is 
to ascertain the duties of man in relation to inquiry, 
or the search after truth, it is necessary to begin by 
examining what states of mind are favourable and 
unfavourable to success in that important pursuit. 
Unless we clearly understand these mental pheno- 
mena, we can fully comprehend neither how far 
they are within our control, to what extent they 
are matters of duty, nor in what manner they are 
affected by the circumstances in which we are 
placed. These states of mind may be classed for 
convenience under the heads of moral and intel- 
lectual ; the former comprehending our desires and 
emotions, the latter our opinions or modes of think- 
ing. 

In entering on any inquiry, we may have desires 
and affections connected with the subject, or with 
the issue of the examination, and preconceived opi- 
nions, which will have a material influence on the 
result. We may feel, for instance, a lively affection 



OX THE STATES OF MIND, &C. 23 

for a doctrine, an irresistible desire to find it con- 
firmed by investigation, and a conviction of its truth 
not the less strong for having no dependence on 
any process of reasoning; or, on the other hand, 
we may feel an entire indifference, and have no 
opinion at all on the subject. 

Amidst the varied conditions in which the mind 
may be, our business at present is to determine in 
what state, moral and intellectual, a man would be 
most likely to succeed in attaining truth on any 
question which he was called on to examine. 

This is a problem not very difficult to solve. 
Every one must at once see, that a simple and sin- 
cere desire to arrive at the truth, without any pre- 
dilection in favour of any opinion whatever, and 
without any other disturbing feeling of affection or 
dislike, or hope or fear, is the moral state of mind 
most favourable to the success of inquiry. If a 
man is possessed with a desire to find a given opi- 
nion true, or to confirm himself in a doctrine which 
he already entertains, he will in all probability pay 
a partial attention to the arguments and evidence 
in its favour, to the neglect of opposite considera- 
tions ; but if he is free from all wishes of this kind, 
if he has no predilection to gratify, if his desires are 
directed solely to the attainment of correct views, 
he will naturally search for information wherever 
it is likely to present itself; he will be without 



24 ON THE STATES OF MIND 

motive for partiality, and susceptible of the full 
force of evidence. 

However unaccountable it may at first sight ap- 
pear, it is a fact, that few human beings, in their 
moral, religious, and political inquiries, are pos- 
sessed with this simple wish of attaining truth : 
their strongest wishes are directed to the discovery 
of new grounds for adhering to opinions already 
formed ; and they are as deaf to arguments on the 
opposite side as they are alive to evidence in favour 
of their own views. The pure wish to arrive at 
truth is indeed as rare as the integrity which strictly 
observes the golden rule to act towards others as 
we would wish others to act towards us. For this 
several reasons may be assigned. A principal one 
is, that men's interests are often indissolubly con- 
nected with the prevalence of certain opinions ; 
they are therefore naturally anxious to find out 
every possible ground why these opinions should 
be held : their personal consequence too is often 
implicated in their support; they are pledged by 
their rank or office, or previous declarations, to the 
maintenance of a determinate line of argument, and 
they feel that it would be a disparagement to their 
intellectual powers and to their reputation, were it 
proved to be unsound. 

Another reason is, that such opinions are some- 
times really objects of affection, and things of habit. 



IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 25 

We are accustomed to regard them as true, and it 
is troublesome to look at them in a different light ; 
or perhaps we love them as the rallying points of 
pleasant ideas and cherished feelings. 
. In addition to all this, men are glad to find in 
their opinions some excuse for their practices. 
They naturally, therefore, wish to meet with a 
confirmation of those doctrines which are condu- 
cive to their self-complacency. 

These, and other similar circumstances, create 
in the mind a desire to find some given opinion 
true; and of course, as far as their influence ex- 
tends, extinguish the desire to find the truth. 

Even when any one entertains a sincere desire 
to form correct opinions on any subject, the feel- 
ings or emotions with which it may be associated 
in his own mind may interfere to disturb his intel- 
lectual views. It is perhaps possible to conceive a 
man possessed with a genuine wish to arrive at the 
truth, notwithstanding a feeling of affection or com- 
placency for some particular doctrine ; and endued 
with such self-control as not to allow a feeling of 
that kind to influence his mode of conducting the 
investigation ; but it will inevitably influence his 
thoughts. All the favourable considerations will 
spontaneously rise to his view with more frequency 
and vividness than those of an opposite character. 

The same effect will frequently take place from 
an apparently contrary cause. A man may feel a 
3 



26 ON THE STATES OF MIND 

dislike for a certain conclusion ; he may dread to 
find it true ; and this very sentiment may so fix his 
view upon it as to assist in bringing about the con- 
viction which he wishes to shun. There are cer- 
tain fixed habitual feelings on some subjects, which 
have a remarkable effect in thus circumscribing the 
intellectual vision. One of the most striking of 
these is the sentiment of awe. If a man is habitu- 
ally labouring under this feeling in regard to the 
general subject, or to the issue of the investigation, 
it is astonishing how limited will be the range of 
his thoughts, how few and how monotonous the 
conceptions to which the subject will give rise. 

It may be questioned, whether this kind of awe 
can exist in any intensity in a mind which is occu- 
pied with a genuine desire after truth ; fear of the 
result of investigation at least can hardly exist 
there ; but if even a fainter tone of the feeling pre- 
dominate, it will prevent that quickness of concep- 
tion, comparison, inference, which would otherwise 
be brought to bear on the inquiry. The fact is, 
however, that this state of mind is generally found 
attended by a desire to receive confirmation in our 
habitual opinions. Men are alarmed when, in de- 
partments of knowledge over which the solemnity 
of fear has diffused itself, they alight on any new 
ground, or in other words, on any doctrines at vari- 
ance with received principles ; and their w r ishes are 
usually pointed to a corroboration of the views with 



IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 27 

which they are already familiar, and which neither 
startle their timidity nor task their understand- 
ings. 

From this brief review it appears that these emo- 
tions produce two effects: they create desires for 
some result other than the simple attainment of truth; 
and even when they create no desires of this kind, 
they suggest ideas which would not have otherwise 
entered the mind ; or what is equally effectual, they 
prevent ideas from entering which would have 
otherwise been suggested. 

Having considered the favourable and unfavourable 
moral states of mind connected with our subject, we 
proceed to the intellectual. In any given mind, the 
intellectual state most favourable for the attainment 
of truth is obviously freedom from preconceived er- 
rors. The preoccupation of the understanding by 
erroneous opinions is one of the greatest impedi- 
ments which offer themselves in the pursuit of 
accurate knowledge. The mere preoccupancy 
itself is an obstacle scarcely to be overcome ; but 
as the opinions thus lodged are generally the ob- 
jects of awe and veneration, the task of removing 
them becomes almost hopeless. No language can 
describe with sufficient force the tenacity with 
which early received notions are retained : they 
seem to enter into the very essence of the soul, to 
weave themselves into the tissue of the understand- 
ing, till it transcends the power of conception to 



28 ON THE STATES OF MIND 

imagine them erroneous. Of those notions in par- 
ticular, which are coeval with our earliest recollec- 
tions, and the origin of which we cannot trace, we 
seem incapable of suspecting the falsity. 

When such notions are combined with that kind 
of fear and awe which we have already described, 
there is no degree of absurdity to which they may 
not rise. A modern writer,* in his travels through 
Mesopotamia, relates that at Orfah (the ancient Ur 
of the Chaldees) the river and the fish in it are re- 
garded as sacred to Abraham, and the inhabitants 
firmly believe, that if any of the fish were caught, 
no process of cooking could make any impression 
on their bodies. Here is a notion which any one 
might at once put to the test by direct trial ; a fact 
which they have only to stretch out their hands to 
verify or disprove ; yet so thoroughly preoccupied 
are the minds of the people by the prejudice instilled 
in early infancy, such awe do they feel in relation 
to it, that they have not the slightest suspicion of 
its absurdity, and would think it profane to at- 
tempt to submit it to the ordeal of actual experi- 
ment. 

Combining the states which we have attempted 
to describe, we have a union of qualifications which 
every lover of knowledge, every inquirer should 
aim at attaining; a simple desire to arrive at the 

* Mr. Buckingham. 



IN THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 29 

truth, a freedom from disturbing passion, and a 
freedom from preconceived erroneous opinions. 

Of these qualifications, the genuine desire for 
truth may be considered the most valuable. If it 
is not the mark, it is at least the indispensable at- 
tribute of a great mind. United with a large and 
comprehensive understanding, it places a man 
amongst the benefactors of his species. 

Were men in general possessed with this desire 
in any great degree of purity and intenseness, many 
errors might undoubtedly still prevail in the world 
from the limited powers of the human intellect ; but 
it is easy to see how much the progress of know- 
lede would be accelerated, and how soon the traces 
of illiberality and intolerance would be swept from 
social intercourse. 

Men in fact are usually in the state here descri- 
bed when they enter on the study of physical and 
mathematical science : their sole object is to know 
all that is to be known, they seldom have any 
passions connected with the truths before them, and 
in general they are perfectly aware of their own 
ignorance. 

In this chapter we have aimed simply at describ- 
ing the moral and intellectual states favourable and 
unfavourable to the grand object of inquiry. How 
far they are subject to our control is a curious and 
interesting question, which will fall under our cog- 
nizance in a subsequent part of the present essay. 

3* 



CHAPTER III. 



IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES INQUIRY IS A DUTY. 

It is our purpose in a subsequent chapter to in- 
quire what are our duties in the pursuit of truth ; 
but it seems necessary in the first place to ascertain 
in what circumstances the duty of investigation is 
incumbent, and to examine some objections which 
may be alleged against it. 

A great majority of mankind may well be excused 
from devoting much attention to the investigation 
of any truths but such as directly relate to their 
immediate condition, or are offered spontaneously 
to their notice. Doomed to incessant labour, they 
are rather to be commended when they evince an 
anxiety for extraneous knowledge than blamed for 
betraying indifference. On those, who are elevated 
above this constant attention to the mere preserva- 
tion of life, the duty of inquiry presses with varying 
force, according to their station and opportunities. 
Without pretending to a complete enumeration, we 
think we may state, that this duty is incumbent on 
all who can be brought under the following classes : 



DUTY OF INQUIRY. 31 

1. Those whose professed office it is to teach 
others. 

2. Those who voluntarily undertake to instruct 
others. 

3. All those who have the means and opportunity 
of inquiry on subjects which have an important 
bearing on their moral actions or conduct in society. 

It assuredly will not require many words to prove, 
that those who are called upon by their office to 
instruct others should diligently investigate the sub- 
jects they have to explain. The labour of inquiry 
is equally demanded of any one who voluntarily 
undertakes the same task. In both these cases, 
inquiry is the only means which the parties have of 
satisfying themselves, that they are disseminating 
truth and not falsehood. Nothing can be more ab- 
solutely imperative. If 1 undertake to instruct 
others, I am under the strongest obligation to do 
all in my power to render myself competent to the 
function, and to take the utmost care not to delude 
or mislead. Instruction can have no legitimate 
object but to teach what is true ; and it is a sort of 
practical contradiction to undertake it, without 
having bestowed the trouble of ascertaining what 
the truth is. 

It is equally imperative on every one to undergo 
the labour of inquiry according to his means and 
opportunities, in regard to all subjects which have 
an important bearing on his conduct; which in 



32 IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES 

other words furnish grounds for determining what 
that conduct shall be. Not to inquire in these 
cases, would be to take steps involving the happi- 
ness of ourselves and our fellow-creatures, without 
knowing or doing all in our power to learn the 
consequences of those steps : it would be staking, 
in fact, our welfare and that of others on the mere 
chance of our being ignorantly in the right. 

When the circumstances here described are com- 
bined, when it is a man's office to instruct others, 
and instruct them on subjects having an important 
bearing on the common welfare, the duty of inquiry 
is raised to its highest pitch. 

On all persons, who come under these three 
classes, it may be stated to be incumbent to pursue 
their inquiries till they can clearly trace satisfactory 
conclusions from undeniable premises. No one 
ought to be satisfied with his opinions on any subject 
of importance, much less ought he to inculcate them 
on others, unless he can trace their connection with 
self-evident principles. 

It is not easy to imagine how this plain statement 
can be controverted or denied ; yet there are fre- 
quent cases in actual life, where the duty of inquiry, 
if not positively rejected, is really evaded. There 
are several pretexts employed on these occasions : 
inquiry might lead to doubt or perplexity ; to be- 
come acquainted with opposite arguments might 
shake the settled convictions of the understanding: 



INQUIRY IS A DUTY. 33 

to read the writings of adversaries might conta- 
minate the mind with false views. 

Every one who alleges such pretexts as these for 
declining inquiry, must obviously begin by assuming 
that his own opinions are unerringly in the right. 
Nothing could justify any man for declining the 
investigation of a subject which it is his duty to 
teach, or on which his opinions necessarily deter- 
mine his social conduct, but the possession of an 
understanding free from liability to error. Not 
gifted with infallibility, in what way except by 
diligent inquiry can he obtain any assurance that he 
is not in the one case disseminating erroneous opi- 
nions, or in the other pursuing a course of injurious 
action ? If he holds any opinion, he must have 
acquired it, either by examination, or by instillation, 
rote, or some process which he cannot recollect. 
On the supposition that he has acquired it by proper 
examination, the duty on which we are now insisting 
has been discharged, and the matter is at an end. 
If he has acquired it in the other manner, if it is fast 
fixed in his understanding without any consciousness 
on his own part how it came there, the mere plea that 
his mind might become unsettled, can be.no argument 
against the duty of investigation. For any thing he 
can allege to the contrary his present opinions are 
wrong; and in that case the disturbance of his 
blind conviction, instead of being an evil, is an 
essential step towards arriving at the truth. 



34 IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES 

There is no foreseeing how far the subtlety of 
interest and indolence may go, and it may be pos- 
sibly assigned as a further reason for his declining 
inquiry, that he may come to some fallacy which 
he cannot surmount, although convinced of its 
character. If he is convinced of its character, he 
must either have grounds for that conviction or not. 
If he has grounds, let him examine them, draw them 
out, try if they are valid, and then the fallacy will 
stand exposed. If he has no grounds for suspect- 
ing a fallacy, what an irrational conclusion he con- 
fesses himself to have arrived at ! But he may re- 
ply — he may be unable to solve the difficulty, he 
may be perplexed, and the issue may he, that it 
would have been much better had he remained in 
his former strong though unenlightened conviction. 
Why better? If he is in perplexity, let him read, 
think, consult the learned and the wise, and the re- 
sult will probably be, a definite opinion on one side 
or the other. But if he still remain in doubt, where 
is the harm, or rather why is it not to be considered 
a good ? The subject is evidently one which admits 
strong probabilities on opposite sides. Doubt, there- 
fore, is the proper sentiment with which to regard 
it: it is the result of the best exercise of the facul- 
ties ; and either positively to believe, or positively 
to disbelieve, would imply an erroneous apprecia- 
tion of evidence. 

In the minds of some people, a strong prejudice 



INQUIRY IS A DUTY. 35 

appears to exist against that state of the under- 
standing which is termed doubt. A little reflection, 
however, will convince any one, that on certain 
subjects doubt is as appropriate a state of mind as 
belief or disbelief on others. There are doctrines, 
propositions, facts, supported and opposed by every 
degree of evidence, and many amongst them by 
that degree of evidence of which the proper effect 
is to leave the mind in an equipoise between two 
conclusions. In these cases, either to believe or 
disbelieve would imply that the understanding was 
improperly affected. Doubt is the appropriate re- 
sult, which there can be no reason to shrink from 
or lament. 

But it is further urged, that inquiry might con- 
taminate the mind with false views ; and therefore 
it is wise and laudable to abstain from it. 

We can understand what is meant by contamina- 
ting a man's habits, or disposition, or even imagina- 
tion. If a man read impure books, or works of 
extravagant fiction and false taste, his imagination 
will inevitably be coloured by the ideas presented, 
and the conceptions which subsequently rise up in 
his mind will partake of the impurity and extrava- 
gance with which he has been conversant. But 
there is no analogy on this point between the 
understanding and the imagination. There is con- 
tamination in preposterous and obscene images 
crowding before the intellectual vision, notwith- 



36 IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES 

standing a full and distinct perception of their 
character; but there is no contamination, no evil 
in a thousand false arguments coming before the 
mind, if their quality is clearly discerned. The 
only possible evil in this case is mistaking false for 
true ; but the man who shrinks from investigation, 
lest he should mistake false for true, can have no 
reason for supposing himself free from that delusion 
in his actual opinions. That he should be more 
likely to escape from error without than with in- 
vestigation, is a species of absurdity which requires 
no exposure. 

On no plea, therefore, can investigation be de- 
clined. That it should unsettle a man's established 
convictions, or that it should lead to ultimate doubt, 
may be a good : the one is the necessary prelimi- 
nary to passing from error to truth ; the other, if 
ultimately produced, is most likely to be the proper 
state of mind in relation to the particular subject 
examined. That inquiry should contaminate his 
mind is also a vain allegation. The only meaning 
which can be attached to the phrase, implies a 
misconception of falsehood for truth, a delusion, 
which inquiry is not only the direct means of pre- 
venting, but of dissipating if he is already involved 
in it. 

Whoever fears to examine the foundation of his 
opinions, and enter on the consideration of any 
train of counter-argument, may rest assured, that 



INQUIRY IS A DUTY. 37 

he has some latent apprehension of their unsound- 
ness and incapacity of standing investigation. And 
as a fear of this sort is totally at variance with that 
spirit of candour and fairness which we have 
already seen to be the proper disposition for the 
attainment of truth, no man should suffer it to pre- 
vent him from boldly engaging in the requisite ex- 
amination. A great deal of invective has been 
levelled at free-thinking. The only distinction 
worth attending to on this point is that between 
accurate and inaccurate, true and false. Thinking 
can never be too free, provided it is just. 



CHAPTER IV. 



EXAMINATION OF CERTAIN PREJUDICES ADVERSE TO 
INQUIRY. 

Besides the objections to inquiry examined in the 
last chapter, there are some other prejudices of a 
similar character, which as long as they prevail 
must form serious impediments to the attainment of 
truth. 

One of these is a fear that we may search too 
far, and be guilty of presumption in prying into 
things we ought not to know : another prejudice is, 
that we may contract guilt should we arrive at erro- 
neous conclusions, or conclusions at variance with 
such as are established ; and another, that it is a sort 
of praiseworthy humility to acquiese in received 
opinions, on the authority of others, and refrain from 
thinking for ourselves. 

A brief space will not be ill bestowed in setting 
these prejudices in their true light. 

As to the first, a few words will suffice to prove 
that nothing can be more irrational and unfounded. 
We have shown in another place* that truth is con- 

* Essay on the Publication of Opinions. 



EXAMINATION, &C. 39 

ducive to human happiness; the attainment of it, 
one of the highest objects of human enterprise ; and 
the free exercise of our faculties on all subjects, the 
means of securing this invaluable blessing. If this 
is a correct representation, investigation is a pursuit 
in which there is every thing to hope and nothing 
to fear, and to which there are no limits but such 
as the nature of our own faculties prescribes. 

It is not easy to conceive with exactness what 
can possibly be apprehended frc-m inquiry ; what is 
the precise danger or difficulty it is expected to in- 
volve us in ; what is implied in the fear that we may 
search too far. Some indeed appear to have ima- 
gined that inquiry might conduct us to forbidden 
truths. 

As there are secret transactions amongst our su- 
periors in society, or even our associates, which we 
should be culpable in prying into ; sealed documents 
circulating in the world, sacred to those whose 
names they bear, and not to be scrutinized with 
honour by any of the intermediate agents through 
whose hands they pass ; records of private affairs, 
kept solely for the use of the individuals concerned 
in them, and which we are not to come upon by 
stealth, and rifle of their information : and as to in- 
fringe the privacy of these matters would be stig- 
matized as indelicate, meddling, presumptuous ; so 
it seems to be supposed that there are closed docu- 
ments in nature into which we are forbidden to 



40 OF CERTAIN PREJUDICES 

look, private processes going on into which we 
have no right to intrude, truths existing which are 
not to be profaned by our scrutiny, and to attempt 
to make ourselves acquainted with these is unjusti- 
fiable audacity and presumption. If this prejudice 
does not often assume the definite form here as- 
cribed to it, it may frequently be found exerting an 
influence without a distinct consciousness in the 
mind over which it prevails. 

A more striking instance of a completely false 
analogy could not be adduced. There is not a 
single point of resemblance throughout the whole 
field of knowledge to these little secrets, the off- 
spring of human weakness, or the indispensable 
resources of human imperfection. There is no 
secret in the natural or the moral world, sacred 
from the investigation of man. Here there can be 
no presumption, no undue boldness, no counterpart 
at all to the audaciousness of one man intruding 
upon the privacy of another. All that man has to 
guard against, and that simply for his own sake, is 
error ; his vigilance is required, only to ensure that 
his facts are properly ascertained, and his inferen- 
ces correctly deduced. The presumption he has to 
repress, is not any presumption in relation to other 
beings in possession of secrets, which he is trying 
clandestinely to wrest from them, but merely the 
presumption of drawing positive and ample conclu- 
sions from doubtful and slender premises, of sup- 



ADVERSE TO INQUIRY. 41 

posing that he has discovered what he has not, that 
he has succeeded where he has only failed, that he 
has done what still remains to be accomplished ; in 
a word, the presumption of overrating his own 
■ achievements. Here indeed a man may err in self- 
confidence, but an evil cannot obviously arise from 
searching too far, which is best remedied by 
searching farther, by closer reasoning and more 
rigorous investigation. 

The strangest absurdities indeed would be in- 
volved in the supposition that we could possibly 
reach to knowledge which we ought not to attain. 
We are placed in this world by the Creator of the 
universe, surrounded with certain objects and en- 
dowed with certain faculties. From these objects, 
with these faculties, it is implied by the hypothesis 
under consideration, we may extort secrets which 
he never designed to be known, extract information 
which Omnipotence wished to withhold ! 

The second prejudice above enumerated, that 
we may contract guilt if in the course of inquiry 
we miss the right conclusion, is still more prevalent 
and influential. On a former occasion* we have 
shown, that nothing can be more at variance with 
reason, than an apprehension of this nature. As 
our opinions on any subject are not voluntary acts 
but involuntary effects, in whatever conclusions 

* Essay on the Formation of Opinions. 
4* 



42 OF CERTAIN PREJUDICES 

our researches terminate, they can involve us in no 
culpability. All that we have to take care of, as 
we shall more largely show hereafter, is to bestow 
on every subject an adequate and impartial atten- 
tion. Having done this we have discharged our 
duty, and it would be irrational and unmanly to 
entertain any apprehension for the result. 

In fact, there is the grossest inconsistency in the 
prejudice now under consideration. If we may 
contract guilt by inquiry, we may contract guilt 
by remaining in our present state. The only valid 
reason which can be assigned, why we may com- 
mit an offence by embarking in any inquiry is, that 
we may miss the right conclusion ; but it is obvious 
that we may equally miss it by remaining in our 
actual opinions. It is then incumbent on us to 
know, whether we are committing an offence by 
remaining in our present opinions ; in other words, 
it is necessary to inquire whether those opinions 
are true ; thus the reason assigned for not inquir- 
ing, leads itself to the conclusion that it is necessary 
to inquire. 

We may also remark, that this prejudice is ob- 
viously at variance with the obligations of morality, 
which we have stated in the last chapter, and that 
so far from its being wrong, it is our actual duty to 
inquire where inquiry is of importance, a duty 
constituted by the consequences with which our 
conduct in this respect is attended. 






ADVERSE TO INQUIRY. 43 

A man, indeed, after the best and most dispas- 
sionate investigation of an important subject, may 
naturally feel a degree of anxiety lest he should 
after all have missed the truth ; but in this anxiety 
there is not, or ought not to be, the slightest admix- 
ture of moral uneasiness. It is an anxiety, lest his 
conclusions, when they come to form the grounds 
of his actions or of his instructions to others, should 
lead to consequences which he did not anticipate. 
His conclusions may be wrong, and the conse- 
quences disastrous ; but if he has a proper view of 
the matter, there will be none of the stings of re- 
morse, not the faintest accusation of conscience. 
Having inquired to the best of his power, he has 
done all that depended on himself, and would ex- 
hibit little wisdom were he to torment himself with 
reproaches for an unfortunate issue. 

The third prejudice we have to consider is, that 
acquiescence in received opinions, or forbearing, 
according to the common phrase, to think for our- 
selves, evinces a degree of humility highly proper 
and commendable. 

If we examine the matter closely, nevertheless, 
we shall find that it usually evinces nothing but a 
great degree of indolent presumption or intellectual 
cowardice. There is often, in truth, as great a 
measure of presumption in this species of acquies- 
cence as in the boldest hypothesis which the human 
invention can start. That received or established 



44 OF CERTAIN PREJUDICES 

opinions arc true, is one of those sweeping conclu- 
sions, which would require very strong reasons and 
often elaborate research to justify it. On what 
grounds are they considered to be true by one who 
declines investigation ? Because (on the most fa- 
vourable supposition) they have been handed down 
to us by our predecessors, and have been regarded 
with conviction by a multitude of illustrious men. 
But what comprehensive reasons are these ! What 
investigation it would require to show they were 
valid ! As the whole history of mankind teems with 
instances of the transmission of the grossest errors 
from one generation to another, and of their having 
been countenanced by the concurrence of the most 
eminent of the race; what a large acquaintance 
with the peculiarities of the generations prccedingus, 
and the circumstances of the great men to whom we 
appeal, it would require to show that this particu- 
lar instance was an exemption from the general lot ! 

It is then no humility to refrain from inquiry ; on 
the contrary, it is the proper kind of humility ; or if 
it is not humility, it is the proper feeling for the 
occasion, to be determined to do all in our power 
to make ourselves acquainted with every subject 
on which it is necessary for us to pronounce or 
profess an opinion. 

From the necessity of using our own judgment, 
or in other words of forming a conclusion for our- 
selves, we cannot be absolved. We must form our 



ADVERSE TO INQUIRY. 45 

opinion either of the doctrine itself, or of the com- 
parative degrees of confidence to which those men 
who have studied the subject are entitled ; and it is 
evident that in the case of disputed doctrines, the 
latter is as difficult, and demands as much investi- 
gation, as much knowledge and acuteness of judg- 
ment, as to come to a decision on the original 
question. 

Let no one then deceive himself by supposing, 
that he is exercising the virtue of humility, or mo- 
desty, or diffidence, when he is in fact resting in a 
conclusion which, to reach legitimately, would re- 
quire so much knowledge and ability. Far from 
being a virtue, indeed, this kind of acquiescence is 
in most cases a positive vice, tending to stop all 
inquiry and all advancement. In certain circum- 
stances, as we have already shown, it is an impera- 
tive duty to enter upon a rigorous examination of 
all the evidence within our reach. 

From the preceding review, it appears that all 
these prejudices are equally unfounded ; that there 
are no forbidden truths, to which inquiry may con- 
duct us ; that the result of inquiry, whatever it may 
be, can involve us in no criminality ; and lastly, that 
it is no true humility to refrain from investigation 
in deference to the authority of others. 

Let the inquirer then enter on his task with full 
confidence that he is embarking in no criminal, or 
forbidden, or presumptuous undertaking. Let him 



4G OF CERTAIN PREJUDICES 

be as circumspect as he pleases in collecting his 
facts and deducing his conclusions, cautious in the 
process, but fearless in the result. Let him be fully 
aware of his liability to error; of the thousand 
sources of illusion ; of the limited powers of the 
individual ; of the paramount importance of truth ; 
but let him dismiss all conscientious apprehensions 
of the issue of an investigation, conducted with due 
application of mind and rectitude of purpose. 

As there are some prejudices which are hostile to 
inquiry, so there are some principles of an opposite 
character, the full and adequate conviction of which 
essentially conduces to promote it. Amongst these 
is the truth that knowledge is progressive, and that 
in this progress every age is placed in a more ad- 
vantageous position for the comprehension of any 
subject of science than the last. Every inquirer, 
therefore, finds himself on higher ground than his 
predecessors ; he can avail himself of their latest 
acquisitions without the labour of original discov- 
ery, and thus with unbroken spirits, and unsub- 
dued vigour, he can commence his career at the 
ultimate boundary of theirs. Hence, without any 
presumption in the superiority of his faculties, he 
may hope to attain views more comprehensive and 
correct, than were enjoyed by men who immeasu- 
rably transcended him in capacity. All the advan- 
tage, nevertheless, which he has over his precur- 
sors, his successors will have over him. All his 



ADVERSE TO INQUIRY. 47 

exertions will tend to place them above him ; and 
the very truths which he discovers, should he be 
fortunate enough to discover any, will give them 
the power of detecting the errors, with which all 
truths on their first manifestation in any mind are 
inevitably conjoined. 

In such considerations as these there might be 
something to deter a man of narrow views and sel- 
fish feelings. That his opinions should be thus 
scrutinized and examined, and their imperfections 
detected ; that in process of time he should lose 
his rank as an oracle on the subject of his exer- 
tions, and be superseded by after-sages, might have 
any other effect than that of stimulating him to 
exertion. To a man of real genius, however, a 
man of large and liberal understanding, and as 
large liberal feelings, these considerations are at 
once replete with satisfaction and encouragement, 
and destructive of undue self-importance and com- 
placency. 

When he looks back on his predecessors, he ap- 
preciates the advantages of his position, and can 
thus, without undue self-estimation, indulge a fair 
hope, that by strenuous exertions his own works 
may form one of the steps in the intellectual pro- 
gress of the race, and constitute him the author of 
benefits to be indefinitely perpetuated. When he 
looks forward, while he exerts in the coming glo- 
ries of progressive knowledge, and anticipates with 



48 OF CERTAIN PREJUDICES 

delight the developement of truths which he is 
never to know ; he feels a perfect confidence that 
any real service which he may render to literature 
or science will be duly appreciated, and rejoices 
that any errors into which he may unconsciously 
wander will do little injury, because they will be 
speedily corrected. 

Knowing that were he even the Newton of his 
age, he must be eventually outstripped, he consi- 
ders such an incident as no wise derogatory to his 
talents or reputation : agitated by none of the 
jealousy which is too common a disgrace to men 
who ought to rise superior to the weakness of such 
a passion, he even feels a desire that he may be 
outstripped in his own life-time, a curiosity to 
know by what modifications his own doctrines will 
be corrected ; he is on the watch for new discove- 
ries, because he knows that there are minds which 
having mastered preceding knowledge are in a con- 
dition to make them. 

It has been frequently stigmatized as presumptu- 
ous and overweening vanity in a man of the present 
day to fancy himself superior to men of past times ; 
but the view of the subject here exhibited annihilates 
all such imputations. It takes away all colour of 
disrespect from the closest scrutiny of the efforts of 
his predecessors. He is conscious that in the most 
successful controversy, if controversy it may be 
called, which he may institute with them, the 



ADVERSE TO INQUIRY. 49 

greatest success cannot be considered as any per- 
sonal superiority on his part over the object of his 
remarks ; he knows that it is the superiority of the 
station to which his own times have carried him ; 
and thus the profoundest respect is compatible 
with the freest examination. What does he ad- 
mire in the great philosophers of past ages ? Not 
surely their errors, perhaps not one of their un- 
qualified opinions ; but he admires the reach of 
thought, which, from the then level of knowledge, 
could touch on truths, the full and perfect mastery 
of which was to be the work of future ages, the 
slow result of the successive efforts of persevering 
and vigorous minds. 

Such a view of the progressive character of hu- 
man knowledge as this would wonderfully facilitate 
the pursuit of truth. No single principle with 
which we are acquainted would have so salutary 
an influence in promoting candour, liberality, 
openness to conviction, self-knowledge, proper 
caution, and proper fearlessness. 



CHAPTER V. 



ON THE DUTIES INCUMBENT ON MANKIND IN THE 
PURSUIT OF TRUTH, OR IN THE PROCESS OF IN- 
QUIRY. 

It is almost an identical proposition, that on 
every subject it is important for man to understand 
clearly what his duty requires of him. While this 
is universally acknowledged, it is sometimes over- 
looked, that it is equally important for him to know 
also what it does not require. It may be questioned, 
indeed, whether more evil has not arisen in the 
world from his regarding useless actions, pernicious 
actions, and actions not within his power, as required 
of him by moral obligation, than from his leaving out 
of the code of duty such as are of a contrary cha- 
racter. As to pernicious actions, a syllable would 
be superfluous to show, that it must be fraught 
with mischief to consider them as duties, and con- 
sequently both to encourage and commit them. 
And with regard to useless actions ; to erect them 
into so many imperative obligations, besides creat- 
ing confusion in our moral sentiments, where perfect 
distinctness and precision are of the highest value, 
and inflicting injury, (as the prevalence of error 
cannot fail to do,) on our reasoning powers, brings 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 51 

upon mankind all the evils of needless restraint and 
profitless compunction. 

It is equally if not more pernicious to regard our- 
selves and others as responsible for actions or 
events, over which we have no control, which we 
can neither produce nor prevent. The unhappi- 
ness reciprocally sustained and inflicted in conse- 
quence of the omission of imaginary duties not in 
any body's power, the needless constraint, the 
doubts and fears and misgivings, the disputes and 
dissensions proceeding from such erroneous feelings 
of moral obligation, are attested by the melancholy 
history of human superstitions. 

Men are peculiarly liable to erroneous sentiments 
of this kind, when the scene of the events in ques- 
tion is partly or wholly in the mind ; when they are 
events of a sensitive or intellectual nature, or ex- 
ternal actions so mixed up with mental processes 
as to baffle the efforts of ordinary discrimination to 
separate them. 

These remarks will be found strikingly applicable 
to the subject before us. In regard to the pursuit 
of truth, there are certain things which are wholly 
in our power, while on the other hand there are 
intellectual processes and states of mind not within 
our control; and these ought to be clearly and 
accurately discriminated, that w T e may satisfactorily 
ascertain what in this important matter it is incum- 
bent on us to do. 



52 DUTIES OF MANKIND IN 

It has been frequently enjoined on the enquirer, 
that he should dismiss all predilection from his 
mind, all prejudices, all fear and hope, and affection, 
and hatred, and other passions, and approach the 
consideration of a subject with that perfect indif- 
ference which would be the most effectual security 
for the ultimate attainment of truth. That this is 
the proper state of mind for the occasion, we have 
already shown. We have seen that the appropriate 
qualifications for an inquirer are a desire to arrive 
at truth, a freedom from disturbing passion, and 
from preconceived errors. And, undoubtedly, were 
it practicable to generate in ourselves the state of 
mind here described, we should be bound to do 
so by the clearest obligations of morality ; but we 
must all know, from our own experience, how im- 
possible it is to divest ourselves of these feelings 
and preconceptions by a mere effort of the will. 
A man who has been brought up in ardent admira- 
tion of certain doctrines, a strong affection for them, 
and an unquestioned conviction of their truth, has no 
power to lay down these feelings at pleasure. They 
have been the slow result of years, the growing 
product of innumerable circumstances ; and we 
might as well ask him to divest himself of the recol- 
lections of his youth as of these affections for what 
he was taught in it. As it is injurious to require or 
to aim at more than can be possibly accomplished, 
it is necessary to ascertain what in this respect is 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 53 

practicable. All that can be expected from a man 
in the circumstances here described, (and the task 
is arduous enough for the strongest powers and 
greatest integrity of purpose,) appears to be to 
make himself perfectly acquainted with the state of 
his own mind. If he becomes fully aware, that he 
has by education, or other circumstances, not only 
a strong conviction of a doctrine, but an ardent love 
for it, without ever having scrutinized its foundation, 
and ascertained the propriety of his sentiments, 
this thorough insight into the state of his under- 
standing and affections is the best security which 
the nature of the case will allow against the influence 
of such prepossessions. The more closely he ex- 
amines himself, the freer he will be from the danger 
of improper bias. 

The same remarks will apply in the case of hos- 
tility entertained against any doctrine ; and in general 
in all cases, where a passion or affection from any 
cause precedes the inquiry which we institute. 

It is plain that such an examination will especially 
tend to loosen the power of all preconceived no- 
tions. To be fully aware that the opinions we 
have hitherto held exist in our understandings simply 
because they have been placed there by others, and 
not as the result of any process of reasoning on our 
own parts, is almost tantamount to the power of 
extirpating them from our minds before we com- 
mence the proposed investigation. 

5* 



54 DUTIES OF MANKIND IN 

However difficult it may be for a man to bring 
himself into the most favourable state of mind for 
the attainment of truth, the next step is entirely in 
his power, and that is to conduct the examination 
of any subject with diligence and impartiality. If it 
is proved in regard to any subject, that it is a man's 
duty to investigate it, it is equally proved that it is 
his duty to pursue the inquiry in a manner calculated 
to attain the end in view. The same reasons which 
require him to examine, demand that the examina- 
tion should be complete and impartial. As without 
examination he can have no security that he is 
teaching truth or acting on just principles, so he can 
have no security on these points, unless the exa- 
mination be conducted in the likeliest manner to 
attain a correct result. 

His investigation must be made in the first place 
with care and diligence. A difficult subject (and 
most disputed subjects are either naturally or fac- 
titiously difficult) is not to be mastered with a 
cursory attention. It has been well remarked, that 
no complex or very important truth can be trans- 
planted in full maturity from one mind to another ; 
it must be sown, strike root, and go through the 
whole process of vegetation, before it can have a 
living connection with the new soil, and flourish in 
complete vigour and development.* 

* The ^exact words of the passage here referred to are as 
follows : " No complex or very important truth was ever yet 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 55 

We are apt to be deceived in this respect on sub- 
jects relating to morals. The terms employed are 
such as are daily used in the common intercourse 
of life, and we imagine we at once comprehend any 
doctrines which they are the medium of express- 
ing. In physical science, where at every step we 
are encountered by the difficulties of a technical 
phraseology, as well as of practical observations 
and experiments, we immediately feel the necessity 
of a regular application and progression, of master- 
ing one principle before we proceed to the next, of 
carrying our object by detail, working our way by 
vigorous and reiteraied efforts. In morals, on the 
contrary, we are too apt to be content with mere cur- 
sory reading: no difficulties are presented by the 
language, no unusual terms arrest our progress, no 
particular experiments demand a pause to verify 
them, and we glide smoothly along the pages of the 
profoundest treatise, with an apparently clear ap- 
prehension of the various propositions we meet 
with, but in reality with a vague conception of their 
full drift and precise meaning. Hence, people are 
often deluded into fancying themselves competent 
to pronounce a decision on questions requiring 

transferred in full development from one mind to another: 
truth of that kind is not a piece of furniture to be shifted; it is 
a seed which must be sown and pass through the several stages 
of growth." — Letters to a Young Man whose Education had been 
neglected. 



56 DUTIES OF MANKIND IN , 

severe study, great nicety of discrimination, and 
close logical deduction. These results are partly 
occasioned also by love of ease, and reluctance to 
intellectual exertion. On difficult subjects, inquiry, 
it is not to be concealed, is laborious : and the na- 
tural indolence of most men induces them to stop 
short of that vigorous application which difficulties 
require for their solution. 

Impartiality of examination is if possible of still 
higher value than care and diligence. It is of little 
importance what industry we exert on any subject, 
if we make all our exertions in one direction, if we 
sedulously close our minds against all considera- 
tions which we dislike, and seek with eagerness for 
any evidence or argument which will confirm our 
established or favourite views. What duty and 
common sense require of us is, that our attention 
be equally given to both sides of every question, 
that we make ourselves thoroughly acquainted with 
all the conflicting arguments, that we be severely 
impartial in weighing the evidence for each, and 
suffer no bias to seduce us into supine omission on 
the one hand, or inordinate rapacity for proof on 
the other. 

This too is any thing but a light and easy task. 
It can be performed to a certain extent by every 
honest and sincere inquirer ; but perhaps to accom- 
plish it in perfection, would require a mind at once 
enlarged, acute, candid, disinterested, and upright. 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 57 

A man who perfectly accomplishes it, however, 
cannot fail to command the esteem of his fellow 
men by the worth and dignity of his conduct. It is 
painful to think that such an example is rare ; that 
instead of it we usually find the mere partisan, one 
evidently engaged not in the pursuit of truth, but in 
searching for every possible argument to support 
and confirm a conclusion, predetermined by his in- 
terest, his prejudices, or his position in society. 

What a contrast do these two present : one can- 
did, upright, fearless of the issue of the investigation 
because solely intent on truth, searching on all 
sides, refusing no evidence, anxious only that every 
circumstance should be brought out in its true co- 
lours and dimensions, and free from anger against 
opposition ; the other directing all his acuteness to 
one side, prying into those sources of information 
alone where he imagines he shall find what is agree- 
able to his wishes, stating every thing both to him- 
self and others with the art and exaggeration of a 
hired pleader, sounding forth the immaculate merits 
of his cause, and filled with rancour against all who 
do not range themselves under the same banners. 

From the lenient manner in which the faults of 
negligent and unfair investigation are generally 
treated, it might seem that they are of small conse- 
quence and light turpitude. To pronounce them 
so, however, under the circumstances described in 
a former chapter, would be little better than an ex- 



58 DUTIES OF MANKIND IN 

press contradiction. When any one has to discharge 
the office of instructing others on the subject of 
inquiry, or when that subject has an important 
relation to his social conduct, the vices of partial 
and inadequate examination must, by the force of 
the terms, be of serious moment. Besides, consi- 
dered in a more comprehensive view, as to their 
effects on the human race at large, far from being 
of trivial consequence, they are sources of great 
evil. They are nothing less in fact than impedi- 
ments to the natural progress of mankind in becom- 
ing acquainted with what is for their real happiness, 
and consequently they are impediments to that 
happiness itself. 

The only improvement in the condition of man- 
kind, that can be rationally expected, is from their 
gradually emancipating themselves from the various 
errors and multiform ignorance in which they are 
involved. Society commences in barbarism, it be- 
comes very slowly enlightened : every step of the 
progress implies the discovery of new truths, or a 
departure from errors to which it has been accus- 
tomed, from notions established, and practices 
consecrated by years. To accomplish this, to dis- 
cover truth and to detect error, investigation is the 
direct means: the more diligent and impartial the 
inquiry, the surer the progress, and the faster the 
improvement. 

It follows, that to deny the importance of 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 59 

investigation, and the importance of conducting 
it with diligence and fairness, is to deny the 
value of the means of improvement, and of using 
those means in the best manner. If then we are 
under any obligation to consult the general welfare, 
diligence and fairness in our inquiries are not only 
• recommendable qualities, which it would be well 
for us to exercise, but they are positive duties, 
which we cannot neglect without actual culpability. 

And further it is of great importance to our 
moral principles in general, that we should culti- 
vate the spirit of fairness in research and contro- 
versy. While there is so much laxity and want of 
discrimination in regard to candour and upright- 
ness in the prosecution of our inquiries, while re- 
search on the most momentous subjects may be 
neglected or perverted with impunity, we cannot 
expect to find the spirit of integrity carried to its 
highest perfection in the commerce of life. From 
one who exhibits a want of proper diligence and 
scrupulous impartiality in his treatment of evidence 
in literature or science, it would be vain to look 
for uncompromising integrity when he is called to 
adjust the contending claims of his fellow-men, or 
to decide between his own rights and those of 
others. In both cases the same qualities are de- 
manded, and if they are neglected in the one, they 
will be weakened in the other. 

Not only however is it rare to see these qualities 



60 DUTIES OF MANKIND IN 

exemplified in the most important questions, but 
nothing is commoner than virtual if not direct re- 
commendations to act in contradiction to them. 
What is the conduct of many of those who take 
upon themselves the office of public instruction? 
Do they recommend that on any important ques- 
tion you should pay equal attention to both sides of 
the controversy ? that you should read the books 
which have been written against their own opini- 
ons as well as such as have been produced in their 
favour ? that you should endeavour to be strictly 
impartial, and scrutinize their arguments with as 
much severity as you employ on those of their op- 
ponents T Is their language "read, examine for 
yourselves, draw your own inferences, impartially 
investigate; we present you with our conclusions 
and the reasons on which they are founded ; we 
believe them to be strong, but put them to the test ; 
assist us by pointing out any fallacies you may 
descry; let us be coadjutors in the grand cause of 
truth?" Is it not then on the contrary, " the doc- 
trine we announce is the only one which can be 
free from error ; avoid all those writings which are 
opposed to it as you would avoid the contamina- 
tion of the plague ; do every thing in your power 
to banish any opposite suggestions from your own 
minds ; shun the moral turpitude of doubting what 
we teach ; fear and confide ?" 

If, however, the positions we have laid down are 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 61 

true, if it is a man's duty to examine, and to exa- 
mine with diligence and impartiality, it is also his 
duty to recommend the same course to others. If 
it would be morally wrong in himself to abstain 
from the investigation of both sides of a question, 
to bestow all his attention on arguments of one 
tendency, to banish as far as he could all opposite 
suggestions instead of giving them a fair and candid 
examination, then he must stand convicted of a 
moral offence for urging upon others the same con- 
duct. On this point there can be no compromise. 
It is either right or wrong to be partial in our in- 
vestigations. If it is wrong to be partial, it is 
wrong to recommend and enforce partiality; it is 
a departure from the distinct line of duty, a devia- 
tion from candid, upright, and honourable conduct. 
This representation, it will be observed, by no 
means implies that a man should refrain from urg- 
ing his opinions with all the arguments in his 
power ; but the moment he begins to teach the 
necessity of thinking as he does, to set forth the 
guilt of dissenting from his doctrine, and to insist 
on the avoidance of all opposite considerations, that 
moment he commits an offence against the moral 
law r of truth. 

The preceding remarks, if they are at all valid, 

show that the whole of our duty in relation to the 

pursuit of truth or to inquiry, is comprehended in 

adequate and impartial examination ; examination 

6 



62 DUTIES OF MANKIND IN 

in the first place of the state of our own minds in 
reference to the subject of inquiry ; and secondly, 
examination of the subject itself and of the evidence 
appertaining to it. 

It is not possible, we apprehend, to state any 
duty connected with the matter, which may not be 
resolved into one of these. 

To this conclusion, there is a prevalent notion 
opposed ; that it is a man's duty to believe certain 
prescribed doctrines. What these doctrines are 
indeed is not by any means settled, but that there 
are some which it is a duty to believe almost all 
unite in pronouncing. 

The simple consideration, that belief is not a 
voluntary act, is sufficient of itself to dispose of 
this proposition ; but a few words will not be wast- 
ed in trying to exhibit the inconsistency of a notion 
which is at the bottom of much human misery. 

If there is any correctness in the preceding con- 
clusions of this treatise, when in certain cases doc- 
trines or propositions are presented to our minds, it 
is our duty to inquire into their truth. Whether 
these are new propositions, or propositions which we 
have held without investigation from the first dawn 
of consciousness, is not material. Circumstances 
present them to our minds as demanding inquiry 
into their truth, and our duty is to examine. It is 
obvious that in this stage of the business at all 
events, it is not our duty to believe them. To exa- 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 63 

mine them is to investigate whether they have a 
title to belief or not ; and if it is our duty to ascer- 
tain whether they have claims on our credence, it 
would be absurd to argue that it is incumbent on 
us to begin the investigation by admitting the claims 
into the validity of which we are inquiring. If 
there is any duty of the kind incumbent on us, it 
must be at a subsequent stage. We proceed, we 
will suppose, in the examination with adequate 
diligence and strict impartiality, tn this process 
there is evidently still no duty of belief to perform. 
All that we have to do is to be fair, candid, and 
diligent. We finally close the investigation, and 
the state of our understandings in relation to the 
subject examined (on the supposition that the pro- 
cess has been conducted in the manner described) 
is obviously the unavoidable and involuntary result : 
that is, it is the necessary result of an investigation 
entered into because it was our duty to enter into 
it, and conducted throughout in the manner our 
duty prescribed. That this result should be a 
given, a pre-ordained result, cannot therefore be a 
duty. 

It would be an extraordinary thing indeed for 
any one to say to us, " it is your duty to inquire 
into this doctrine and to conduct the examination 
with strict fairness and integrity ; but although you 
do all this, unless your examination terminate in a 
belief of the doctrine, you will be morally culpable. " 



64 DUTIES OF MANKIND IN 

It will probably be objected, "your culpability 
arises from this, that you did not do all in your 
power to believe the doctrine." Do all in our 
power to believe? Why should we? On what 
grounds of duty ? Previous to examination the doc- 
trine is not to us a truth, it is merely a proposition 
offered to our scrutiny : why then should we wish 
to believe it, or do all in our power to believe it? 
The proper wish on such an occasion, as we have 
seen, is not to find any proposition true, but to find 
the truth ; and in regard to doing all in our power 
to believe, if this implies, as it obviously does, pay- 
ing more attention to the considerations on one side 
of the question than those on the other, it would be 
a positive violation of duty, an infraction of that 
rigid impartiality which has already been estab- 
lished as an imperative obligation. 

But the objector replies, "you have suffered 
your passions to interfere, it is perversity of heart 
and malignity of disposition, which have rendered 
propositions incredible to you that have been ad- 
mitted by others." If this accusation is meant to 
apply to the manner in which we have designedly 
treated the evidence, then as by the supposition we 
have conducted the examination with fairness and 
diligence, it is manifestly out of place. But if the 
intention of it is to charge us with being possessed 
by passions, which have involuntarily on our parts 
exaggerated some portions of the evidence and 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 65 

weakened others, and thus led to erroneous con- 
clusions, we reply: 1. This is a mere gratuitous 
assumption. 2. It is at all events an involuntary 
error which is charged upon us. 3. Since by the 
supposition we have conducted the examination 
with perfect fairness, notwithstanding our suffering 
under these passions, the greater is our merit. 4. 
The circumstance of having conducted it fairly 
ought to be received in the absence of all other 
evidence, as conclusive proof that no such passions 
have prevailed. 5. As we have just the same 
grounds for throwing such an imputation on our 
opponent, we may with equal fairness suppose, that 
in forming an opinion different from ours, he has 
been influenced by some of these reprehensible 
passions. 

At this point the objector will probably say, 
" you have made suppositions which I cannot al- 
low ; you have supposed that an investigation may 
be conducted with fulness, fairness, and impar- 
tiality, and not end in the preordained result, in 
the prescribed opinion : now this I deny. If the 
investigation had been diligently and fairly prose- 
cuted, there is only one opinion in which it could 
have ended. That it has terminated differently is 
a full proof of some vice in the process. 1 " 

This we believe is a correct representation of 
what passes in the minds of those who condemn 
others as morally culpable for their opinions. Ta- 
6* 



66 DUTIES OF MANKIND IN 

citly assuming themselves to be unerringly in the 
right, they conclude that others could not have dif- 
fered from them had they fairly examined. 

To an objector of this class it is easy to answer: 
11 we might with equal fairness and propriety charge 
the same vice upon you. What reason can you 
have for maintaining that all fair and diligent ex- 
amination must end in the belief of your opinion, 
which we may not have for asserting the same thing 
in favour of our own ?" 

He may possibly reply, " The reasons for my 
opinion are superlatively strong. I cannot con- 
ceive it possible that any one who candidly ex- 
amines can resist them; they have convinced the 
best and greatest minds ; they have never been 
refuted." 

We answer, " all these phrases are only expressions 
of the strength of your own conviction. As to the 
reasons for your opinion, we have examined them, 
and they appear to us outweighed by opposite con- 
siderations. Your conviction of their force is not 
greater than that which we entertain of the strength 
of the arguments on our side of the question. Our 
opinion, too, has been held by men of powerful 
minds ; and if it had not, there is nothing in the 
circumstance of powerful minds having held an 
opinion which can possibly strengthen the direct 
evidence in its favour to one who examines it. To 
one w r ho does not examine, authority may be a 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 67 

valid argument ; to one who does, authority in op- 
position to his own views is nothing but an in- 
ducement to examine more closely, to suspect 
unperceived fallacies, to seek for additional evi- 
dence, to review all his own inferences, and try 
every part of the chain which connects them with 
acknowledged premises. You will perceive there- 
fore that we have as great a right to adopt the lan- 
guage of infallibility as you have." 

The proceeding of such an objector as we have 
here supposed is nothing more or less than making 
the coincidence or discrepancy of the opinion of 
any inquirer with his own opinion, the criterion 
whether the inquiry has been properly conducted. 

This it is obvious can never be admissible. In 
all arguments the disputants are to be placed on 
equal terms ; nothing must be granted to one that 
is not to another. If this sort of procedure were 
conceded to any, it must be conceded to all, and it 
is easy to see that all argument would be at an end. 
But the good sense of mankind, with a happy in- 
consistency, often saves them from the legitimate 
consequences of their own principles. While every 
one might arrogate such a privilege to himself, he 
would see the folly of a claim to it on the part of 
another. 

Were we asked what criterion then we would 
propose of fairness and unfairness in the process of 
investigation, we answer that there are two sets of 



68 DUTIES OF MANKIND IN 

circumstances by which we may guide our judg- 
ment on that point. First, we may form a general 
presumption from a man's known personal qualities 
and habits. We may, for example, fairly presume, 
that by a man of strict integrity in other matters, no 
wilful partiality has been exercised in the examina- 
tion of any question which he has been called to 
investigate. In the absence of express evidence 
to the contrary, this would be the only just infer- 
ence. A man's personal qualities and habits, how- 
ever, are known only to a few, and even when 
known they cannot be considered as specific evi- 
dence of particular facts. We have much more 
exact grounds for deciding on the fairness or un- 
fairness of his investigations in the second set of 
circumstances referred to, namely, the qualities 
which he actually exhibits in producing his opin- 
nions to the world. Diligence, candour, upright- 
ness, impartiality on the one hand, and indolence, 
disingenuousness, unfairness on the other, are quali- 
ties which belong as well to the mode of stating to 
others the evidence and arguments on any subject, 
as to the mode of conducting inquiry, and reveal 
the character of those efforts which have been 
made in the secresy and silence of the closet. 
From the opinion of any one barely expressed, we 
can learn nothing of the process by which it has 
been formed ; but let him produce his arguments, 
his authorities, his moral sentiments, and he fur- 



THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 69 

rushes us with sufficient data to decide on his fair- 
ness and integrity : at least we have no concern 
with the course of application in which his opinion 
has originated, except so far as these data betray it. 

The qualities we have enumerated are often as 
distinctly displayed in a man's compositions or con- 
versation, as they are in any part of his conduct. 
Who can mistake the language of sincerity and sin- 
gleness of purpose, for that of interestedness and 
duplicity ? who the colourings and exaggerations of 
party pleading for the honest exposition of the in- 
quirer after truth ? 

Some one has sarcastically said, that language 
was given to man to conceal his thoughts. In vain, 
however, would he employ it to conceal his moral 
qualities. 

In any long tissue of sentiment and reasoning, the 
real properties of the mind will manifest themselves. 
It is as impossible for the mean, hypocritical, servile 
spirit to assume through any long investigation the 
moral carriage of the liberal, the candid, the upright, 
the noble, as to produce in itself the feelings by 
which they are animated. The greatest art will not 
suffice to suppress certain infallible symptoms of 
what lurks beneath the surface, while it will be 
totally incapable of producing, because utterly un- 
conscious of many other indications, universally 
attending the qualities which command our esteem 
and admiration. He who takes up his pen for the 



70 DUTIES OF MANKIND, &C. 

gratification of an unworthy passion, spleen, hatred, 
revenge, or whatever it may be, may rest assured 
that the chances are ten thousand to one against a 
successful concealment of his actuating principle. 

Of all the faults which authors and teachers 
commit in their controversies, perhaps none de- 
serves exposure more than the practice of pro- 
nouncing on a man's fairness, good feeling, and integ- 
rity, not from the usual indications of those qualities, 
but from the nature of the conclusions at which he 
has arrived. Neglecting all the various causes which 
inevitably generate differences of opinion, and which 
fully and satisfactorily account for the widest dis- 
crepancies that exist, they can find nothing to which 
they can ascribe a deviation from their own tenets, 
but perversity of heart or malignity of purpose, and 
the sole evidence they look for of these criminal 
dispositions is that difference of opinion itself. 



CHAPTER VI. 



ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE INSTITUTIONS AND PRAC- 
TICES OF SOCIETY ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 

Having examined the states of mind favourable 
and unfavourable to the success of inquiry, and in- 
vestigated the conduct which it becomes the inquirer 
to pursue, we may now proceed to the examination 
of such practices and institutions in society as have 
a tendency to beget those states of mind, and to in- 
fluence that conduct. 

Were we to imagine a system the most favoura- 
ble to the pursuit of truth, it w r ould of course be 
one by which no partialities or antipathies were 
created, and no inducements held out to an inade- 
quate or unfair examination ; a system, in short, 
which left conclusions or doctrines unnoticed, and 
if it interfered at all, extended its encouragement to 
enterprise in undertaking, and diligence and fairness 
in conducting investigation. If a simple wish to 
arrive at correct conclusions is the proper state of 
mind in which to enter upon any subject, and a 
strictly impartial attention to the conflicting evi- 
dence the proper conduct to be pursued during the 



72 INFLUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS 

examination, every practice or institution in society 
which creates other wishes, and offers inducements 
to pursue a different conduct, must be pronounced 
inimical to the attainment of truth. 

Amongst these we must rank institutions bestow- 
ing emolument on individuals, with the stipulation 
that they teach certain doctrines definitively pre- 
scribed. It must be acknowledged, that institutions 
of this character are likely to have great influence 
over the moral and intellectual condition and con- 
duct of those who come within their sphere. He who 
enters into them has no choice as to what he shall 
teach. He must either conform to the prescribed 
doctrines, or quit his station and give up the emolu- 
ment. At the outset he either believes or disbelieves 
the doctrines. If he believes them, he has cogent 
motives for abstaining from all examination of their 
validity ; at least from any fair and candid examina- 
tion of the objections brought against them. The 
indolence of mind engendered by the perfect coin- 
cidence of his opinions and his interest disposes him 
to shun an intellectual effort, which could not have 
a happier result than the conclusion in which he is 
already at his ease ; and the apprehension of the 
bare possibility of a different result operates equally 
to deter him fromt he enterprise. Every consider- 
ation presented by the circumstances in which he 
is placed suggests, that his exertions should be 
restricted to an inquiry after more striking and 



ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 73 

ingenious arguments in support of the opinions 
which he is at present fortunate enough to hold. 

If on the other hand he does not believe the doc- 
trines which he has undertaken to profess and ex- 
pound, he will have equally strong reasons to keep 
him from a full and impartial inquiry into their 
truth. To escape the degradation of inculcating 
on others doctrines which he disbelieves himself, he 
will apply all his attention to the evidence in their 
favour: all his diligence, his talent, his ingenuity, 
will be exerted to magnify the arguments that he 
wishes to find conclusive ; all his care will be em- 
ployed to keep his mind from the operation of 
antagonist considerations. 

A man in either of the situations described, can 
hardly be expected to be possessed with a wish to 
arrive at the truth, whatever it may be. It is the 
natural tendency of his position to destroy this wish 
in the most candid and impartial mind, and to sub- 
stitute in its place the desire to attain or strengthen 
a conviction of the prescribed doctrines. The con- 
sequences of arriving at results inconsistent with 
them are too fearful for him to contemplate, and he 
will therefore venture on no course of which he 
does not see a probable termination in their fa- 
vour. 

If there is any regularity in the motives which 
operate on the human mind, we may safely pro- 
nounce that this will be found the tendency of such 
7 



74 INFLUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS 

institutions. There may be other reasons why they 
should be supported ; they may be fraught in other 
ways with advantages so ample and decided as to 
overbalance the evil now ascribed to them ; they 
may be essential to the preservation of religion, of 
the state, of morals, of decorum, of civilization : 
into these imputed benefits we do not inquire ; we 
regard the institutions singly in the point of view 
relating to our subject ; and it cannot be denied, 
that how great soever may be their other advan- 
tages, they have this particular tendency to beget a 
state of mind and a course of conduct, different 
from those which the tenor of the preceding part 
of this treatise has shown to be required by the in- 
terests of mankind and the obligations of morality. 
Truth itself demands that this tendency should be 
fully stated and understood. 

The annexation of any advantage whatever, 
whether by positive institution or by the habits of 
the community, to any particular opinions, has the 
same effects as that of pecuniary emolument. Eli- 
gibility to. honours, the esteem of friends, reputation 
in society, and other benefits accruing from the pro- 
fession of certain opinions, operate in the same way 
as inducements to negligent and impartial treatment 
of evidence. The case we have taken may be 
considered as the representative of all, and re- 
lieves us from the necessity of entering on further 
detail. 



ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 75" 

But these institutions have also a further effect, 
besides their direct influence over the minds of the 
parties as already described. Men seeing the ad- 
vantages of holding these doctrines, and some of 
them feeling perhaps the evils of disbelieving them, 
are particularly careful to instil them into the minds 
of their children, that their descendants may fully 
possess the firm conviction which removes so many 
obstacles from the career of fame and fortune. 

This remark brings us to the consideration of a 
practice described by Locke under the appellation 
of principling the minds of children; the practice 
of instilling certain doctrines into their minds with- 
out teaching them the duty of examination ; and 
even of connecting the idea of guilt with any doubt 
or departure from the opinions prescribed. 

" There is, 11 says Locke, " I know, a great fault 
among all sorts of people of principling their child- 
ren and scholars ; which at last, when looked into, 
amounts to no more, but making them imbibe their 
teacher's notions and tenets by an implicit faith, 
and firmly to adhere to them whether true or false. 
What colours may be given to this, or of what use 
it may be when practised upon the vulgar destined 
to labour, and given up to the service of their bel- 
lies, I will not here inquire. But as to the inge- 
nuous part of mankind, whose condition allows 
them leisure, and letters, and inquiry after truth, 1 
can see no other right way of principling them, but 



-76 INFLUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS 

to take heed, as much as may be, that in their ten- 
der years, ideas, that have no natural cohesion, 
come not to be united in their heads, and that this 
rule be often inculcated to them to be their guide 
in the whole course of their lives and studies, viz. 
that they never suffer any ideas to be joined in their 
understandings, in any other or stronger combina- 
tion than what their own nature and correspondence 
give them ; and that they often examine those that 
they find linked together in their, minds ; whether 
this association of ideas be from the visible agree- 
ment that is in the ideas themselves, or from the 
habitual and prevailing custom of the mind joining 
them thus together in thinking."* 

In treating of this topic we shall also confine our- 
selves to the point of view immediately relating to 
our subject. Our purpose is to show the effects of 
th6 institutions and practices of society on the de- 
sire after truth and the mode of investigation ; and 
no one will surely deny, that if the minds of child- 
ren are strongly imbued with particular doctrines, 
if they are taught to believe that to doubt such doc- 
trines is a crime, if they are commanded to receive 
them as positive and incontrovertible truths of 
which no question is to be entertained, if they grow 
up therefore unaccustomed to examination, the ef- 
fect must be a state of mind as remote as possible 

* Conduct of the Understanding, sec. 41. 



ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 77 

from a fearless and ardent desire after truth, and a 
conduct in regard to investigation in which we shall 
vainly look for diligence and impartiality. 

It may be urged, indeed, that instilling doctrines 
into the minds of children is unavoidable ; that they 
must necessarily learn many things the reasons of 
which they cannot understand, and take many things 
on trust because incapable of appreciating the evi- 
dence on which they rest. All this is readily al- 
lowed. Many things must be taught them for which 
they can for a while have no other authority than 
the teacher ; but if we really wish to produce in 
them a love of truth, a desire after knowledge, a 
spirit of candour, and that integrity of mind which 
will best preserve them from error, nothing must 
be taught them as a doctrine which it is their duty 
to believe, and of which it is a crime to doubt. All 
the instruction given them should be accompanied 
with inducements to exert their own faculties, to 
seek for reasons of what is asserted. They should 
be rescued from the mere passive adoption of what 
is proposed to them by authority, and trained to 
the habit of drawing their own inferences. All the 
reverence which they are commonly educated to 
feel for particular doctrines and authorities, they 
should be taught to feel for truth itself, and for 
honesty of investigation. It is under such a disci- 
pline that we should expect to see minds of integrity 
arise which would be blessings to the world. 
7* 



78 INFLUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS 

One other practice in society remains to be 
noticed, which must necessarily have an evil effect 
on the spirit and conduct of investigation ; namely, 
the practice of persecution for opinions, that eternal 
blot on the reputation of humanity. It might be 
expected, perhaps, that as rewards encourage a 
partial attention to evidence in favour of those 
doctrines for the profession of which they are be- 
stowed, the opposite treatment, persecution, would 
have the effect of inducing mankind to shun the 
persecuted doctrines and the arguments in their 
favour. And it no doubt happens, that the lovers 
of peace and quietness, who do not greatly concern 
themselves about any opinions so long as their 
ordinary course of life is suffered to run smoothly, 
may be deterred by a fear of painful consequences 
from any attention to doctrines which can bring 
only danger and discredit on their votaries. But in 
general the effect is the reverse, and especially on 
the party who actually suffers in his own person. 
His passions are roused against his oppressors, and 
instead of seeking for what is true, his whole soul 
is bent on detecting the errors of his antagonists, 
and providing himself with every possible argument 
on his own side. He grasps not at truth, but at the 
means, whatever they may be, of self defence, and 
at the power of annoyance. Thus punishment in 
fact, like rewards, although in a different way, brings 



ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH. 79 

the mind into a state far from being favourable to 
impartiality of investigation. 

This is true even of that minor species of per- 
secution, which consists in debarring dissentients 
from certain rights and privileges, or exacting de- 
clarations of faith. Many find themselves from 
rank, or birth, or station, in this vexatious position 
in society ; and the irritation which it produces, 
the sense of injustice which they feel, has a ten- 
dency to sharpen their perspicacity to all the 
arguments of their own party, and to the weak 
points of the system which degrades itself by an- 
noying them with needless disabilities and injurious 
exactions. 

In whatever light persecution is considered, it 
shows itself a compound of folly and wickedness. 
Besides the direct misery which it inflicts on society, 
we see from this representation that it has the effect 
of putting the mind into an unfavourable state for 
the perception of truth; and even defeats its own 
object, inasmuch as it strengthens the conviction of 
those opinions against which it is directed. 



CHAPTER VII. 



ON THE SPIRIT IN WHICH WE OUGHT TO COMMUNICATE 
AND RECEIVE THE RESULTS OF INQUIRY. 

We have now considered the importance of 
searching for truth, the states of mind favourable 
and unfavourable to the success of inquiry, the 
prejudices opposed to it, on whom the duty of 
investigation devolves, what is the conduct incum- 
bent on them during the process, and lastly the 
influence of the institutions and practices of society 
on this momentous pursuit. 

The subject however is not yet exhausted. There 
are other duties involved in the pursuit of truth, 
which are equally worth our attention. 

When we have exerted our utmost vigour of in- 
tellect, examined all sides of a question with impar- 
tiality, and attained a satisfactory conclusion clearly 
deduced from undeniable premises ; in a word, 
when we have fully discharged the duties incum- 
bent on us during the process of inquiry, there are 
still important offices which we may be called on 
to perform : we may be required to communicate 
the results of our investigation to others, and we 



THE RESULTS OF INQUIRY. 81 

may also have to receive from others the results of 
investigations in which they have been engaged. It 
is worth while to examine what is the proper spirit, 
in which to do both the one and the other. 

One who has taken due pains to master a subject, 
who feels persuaded that he can present it in a new 
light, and who is not destitute of the obvious qua- 
lifications for the task, is under an obligation to 
communicate his views to his fellow-creatures. 
Not to do it, if the matter were of importance, 
would be reprehensible selfishness; it could be 
only to avoid trouble, or shrink from responsibility, 
or maintain a solitary superiority over the rest of 
the world. 

It is true, he may be deceived in his estimate of 
his own achievements ; an exaggerated opinion of 
the value of what we ourselves accomplish, is 
perhaps inseparable from human nature ; but if he 
has taken due pains, and is actuated by a proper 
spirit, his conduct is entitled to approbation. By 
communicating the result of his inquiries, he may 
possibly too be instrumental in promulgating error; 
his views may wander widely from the truth, and 
he may lead many astray by the same illusive rea- 
soning which has deceived his own mind. These 
are things, which, according to the constitution of 
man and the present state of society, cannot be 
avoided. Even in this case, nevertheless, he is 
doing good. His errors are such as have, with 



82 COMMUNICATING AND RECEIVING 

more or less distinctness, presented themselves to 
other minds as truths. To bring them openly for- 
ward, with the premises from which they are de- 
duced, and the train of reasoning by which they 
have established themselves as truths in his own 
understanding, is giving them the best chance of 
being refuted, and refuted in so full and luminous a 
manner, that their real character will be conspicu- 
ous to every future inquirer. 

Had they been kept back, had they and the 
arguments in their support not been openly pro- 
duced, they would have continued to haunt other 
minds, to delude other understandings, and create 
those casual and vague disputes, which are perpe- 
tually arising when a question has not been tho- 
roughly canvassed. 

While therefore he deserves the execration of 
mankind who knowingly promulgates falsehood, 
and of course has the purpose of deceiving ; an 
opposite sentiment is due to the man, who, w T ith 
upright intentions, and after adequate examination, 
is unfortunate enough to be the unconscious instru- 
ment of disseminating error. To such a misfortune 
all men are liable, and this liability imposes on them 
the duty of communicating their opinions in a spirit 
of candour and liberality. In danger, with the ut- 
most circumspection, of falling into mistakes, it 
becomes them to evince ^n entire openness to cor- 
rection, a willingness to listen to opposite sugges- 



THE RESULTS OF INQUIRY. 83 

tions, a readiness to review their most cautious 
conclusions, and a perpetual sense of their own fal- 
libility. They should endeavour, too, to separate 
the consideration of their own reputation from the 
cause of truth. 

A man who communicates his views to the world, 
. is, or ought to be, an inquirer after truth, and it is 
of little importance to him in that character, when 
a mistake has been committed and detected, which 
part of the process is his. That an error has been 
cleared up, that a truth has been discovered, should 
occasion too much pleasure to his mind to permit 
it to dwell long on the personal consideration of 
the agency through which it has been accomplished. 

This openness to conviction nevertheless is per- 
fectly consistent with a severe examination of all 
opposite allegations, and a free exposure of antago- 
nist sophistry. Let him reply, retort, return the 
scrutiny of his opponents, and especially expose any 
unfairness or malevolence which may characterise 
their opposition ; but let him at the same time 
cheerfully acknowledge any error of which he may 
be convicted; let him pay the most scrutinizing 
attention to hostile criticism, not to find out merely 
how to reply to it, but how far it is fairly applicable. 

Were we to imagine a being, who, while he was 
free from the moral weaknesses of human nature, 
was still subject to its intellectual fallibility ; the 
following is the kind of language we should expect 



84 COMMUNICATING AND RECEIVING 

to hear from him, on his giving to the public the 
result of any investigations in which he had been 
employed. 

" In communicating these speculations to the 
world, I do it under a full sense of my liability to 
error, and of the chances that I have fallen into 
many mistakes, notwithstanding the patient thought 
which 1 have bestowed on the subject, and the va- 
rious means I have employed to ensure correctness. 
Future philosophers, I am aware, will see in a much 
clearer light the truths here developed, and will 
present them in a much more lucid and convincing 
order; divested too of the inaccuracies which sur- 
round them in my pages. These inaccuracies I 
have not the slightest wish to see spared. So far 
from desiring any one to forbear pointing out errors 
in my reasoning, 1 shall feel greatly indebted to him 
for the correction of a fallacy. One of the ends 
which I seek to accomplish by laying these specu- 
lations before the public, is to avail myself of the 
instruction arising out of the different views which 
different minds take of the same subject. And not 
only will any one confer a real benefit on me by 
dissipating my errors, but he will prevent my specu- 
lations from spreading erroneous opinions among 
mankind, and counteracting any advantages which 
might result from such of them as are well-founded. 
Nothing can be more abhorrent to the feelings of a 
man of upright mind, than that errors should be 



THE RESULTS OF INQUIRY. 85 

perpetuated merely to preserve his reputation for 
correctness, and save his vanity from mortification : 
nothing therefore ought to be received with more 
gratitude than an indication where those errors lie. 
It at once enlightens his own mind, and saves him 
from being the instrument of injury to his fellow 
creatures, when he thought of doing them a service. 

" On this point I have only one request to make, 
that the existence of an error may be shown, not 
merely asserted ; and that any fallacy in reasoning 
may be directly pointed out, rather than met by 
counter arguments drawn from different premises. 
When any train of reasoning is fairly laid down 
before us, if it involves an error, the fallacy may be 
detected and exposed. For any such detection then 
I shall be grateful. I am willing to review, to dis- 
cuss, to analyze again any principle which I have 
maintained, and should rejoice to emancipate my- 
self from any illusion. 

" Should any one intermix his exposure of my 
errors with opprobrious language, it will be to his 
own detriment and disgrace ; but it shall not prevent 
me from taking advantage of his perspicacity to 
clear my understanding from inaccurate concep- 
tions. While I shall do my best to seize the truth 
of his arguments, I shall also in the same spirit of 
fairness endeavour to appreciate and exhibit in its 
true colours, that unfortunate junction of malignancy 
8 



86 COMMUNICATING AND RECEIVING 

of disposition with intellectual power, of which he 
has afforded the melancholy spectacle. 

"If, on the other hand, the objections brought 
against any of my doctrines appear to me, after the 
fullest and fairest examination, to be unsound, I 
shall not hesitate on my part to expose their cha- 
racter. To this task I shall devote the utmost 
acuteness of which I am master, and undertake as 
close and severe an examination of their pretensions 
as 1 should desire might be bestowed on my own. 

" In a word r as truth is my object, I shall endea- 
vour to find it by every means in my power, and 
shall freely join in the exposure of error, whether 
found in preceding writings, in my own productions, 
or in those of my antagonists.'" 

So much for the spirit with which a man should 
communicate his views to the public ; and from 
this representation may also be gathered the spirit 
in which he ought to receive the communications 
of others. 

In the first place, it follows from the preceding 
remarks, that some degree of good will and appro- 
bation is due to every communication, which is 
made after the requisite preparation and with up- 
right intentions. 

This sentiment of kindness, nevertheless, is not 
to prevent a strict appreciation of merits and de- 
fects. A man who presents his views to the world 



THE RESULTS OF INQUIRY. 87 

is attempting to influence the minds of myriads of 
human beings, and it becomes of importance that 
these views should be put to the severest test which 
human ingenuity can devise. It is for the benefit 
of all that truth should prevail ; and that the merits 
and defects, the strength and the weakness of a 
work, whatever they really are, should be rendered 
distinctly manifest As no upright man would wish 
error to exist for his own private advantage in op- 
position to the general good, so he ought not to 
refrain from the exposure of it in the writings of 
others, merely from a principle of humanity. If 
the error is important, the duty of the occasion is 
to point it out. True benevolence here consists in 
counteracting a general evil, although at the ex- 
pense of impairing individual happiness. 

The whole duty on the subject indeed, may be 
comprised in one word — -justice. This is what 
every critic ought to give, and more than this a 
man ought not to wish to receive. The general 
presumption in favour of an author's intentions, in 
the absence of all evidence to the contrary, should 
obtain for him the courtesy due to a laudable at- 
tempt, and secure him from all imputations of 
bad motives, but not shield his speculations from 
scrutiny. There is nothing incompatible between 
thorough esteem for the moral and even intellec- 
tual qualities of his mind, and a full conviction of 
the inaccuracy of his views and the unsoundness of 



88 COMMUNICATING AND RECEIVING 

his arguments ; — nothing inconsistent between re- 
spect for the one and a free exposure of the other. 

It will frequently happen, that not only errors 
will be committed, which it will be requisite to ex- 
pose, but various mental qualities will be exhibited 
in the communication of opinions; — vanity, conceit, 
affectation, prejudice, presumption, and other of- 
fensive and ludicrous characteristics. There is no 
good reason why these should not be set in their 
true light. That every thing should appear to 
every one what it really is, must ever be the inte- 
rest of the majority of mankind. At the same time 
it deserves to be remembered, that some errors 
carry along with them their own refutation, and 
some weaknesses furnish their own exposure, so 
that neglect may be a not less efficacious although 
a less painful remedy than censure. 

The same justice which requires these errors 
and weaknesses to be shown in their true charac- 
ter, imposes on us the pleasanter duty of pointing 
out excellences whenever they occur. To com- 
mend just reasoning, felicitous illustration, candour, 
fairness, modesty, and magnanimity, is equally de- 
manded of us, as to expose and condemn qualities 
of an opposite nature. Men do not always feel 
that it is not sufficient to pass over these merito- 
rious qualities in silence, — to intermit their vitu- 
peration when they meet with them : something 
more than this is required by the general good ; 



THE RESULTS OF INQUIRY. 89 

just commendation is as useful as just censure, and 
to withhold it is a fraud at once on the individual 
and the public. 

This is the more necessary to be insisted on, as 
we frequently meet with men, rigid in the applica- 
tion of principles, professing to bring every thing to 
the standard of utility, and severe in their condem- 
nation of all deviations from this rule, who appear 
to think they have done every thing required of 
them, when they have performed the task of repre- 
hension. With a strong sense of vice and error, 
they have no ardour for excellence ; prone to cen- 
sure, they are without inclination to praise; alive 
to deformity, they are insensible to beauty and ele- 
gance. If they attempt to commend, it seems an 
effort against their nature, resulting in imperfect 
accents of abortive eulogy. 

Conduct of this kind is reprehensible on their 
own principles, it is equally important that excel- 
lences should be duly appreciated, as that defects 
should be placed in a true light. In this as in other 
cases, we can have no better guide than the law of 
truth. Let every thing be regarded and represented 
exactly as it is : let vices be seen as vices, and let 
virtues appear in their true character. If men see 
clearly they can scarcely fail to feel correctly. 

We contend for the commendation of merit, but 
it requires no exaggerated praise. The simplest 
statement of what has been accomplished is all to 



90 COMMUNICATING AND RECEIVING 

which it needs to aspire, although it is not all which 
a generous spirit is impatient to bestow. Noble- 
ness of mind springs forward with ardour to meet 
every indication of a similar nature wherever it 
appears. There is no surer mark of the absence of 
the highest moral and intellectual qualities, than a 
cold reception of excellence. 

Further, it will not escape the candid*mind, that 
being ourselves liable to mistake, we may err both 
in censure and applause. Were we infallible, we 
might with equal fearlessness commit ourselves to a 
description of both the merits and the defects of 
any production offered to our scrutiny ; but prone 
to err, we should recollect that errors of censure 
are more certainly destructive of happiness than 
errors of praise, and we therefore ought to be es- 
pecially vigilant in investigating the grounds of our 
decision before we pronounce an unfavourable sen- 
tence. 

Were these principles acted upon, every man 
would have the proper inducement to keep back or 
to bring forward the fruits of his researches. 

Knowing that if he produced what was immature, 
ridiculous, unsound, or fallacious, he must undergo 
the ordeal of ridicule and refutation, he would be 
cautious of obtruding what would do him no honour : 
confident, on the other hand, that his merits would 
be fairly appreciated, he would feel all that alert- 
ness in his labours which naturally arises from the 



THE RESULTS OF INQUIRY. 91 

conviction that we are making advances to a deter- 
minate point : and lastly, assured that the decision 
of his judges would be right, he would acquiesce in 
it, even if unfavourable, without irritation and with- 
out complaint, and with the satisfaction at least, 
that he had made some progress in a knowledge of 
his own capabilities. 



ESSAY 



PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



ESSAY II 



oy 



THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



PART I. 

A. I am glad that we have disengaged ourselves 
from the company, as 1 am not altogether satisfied 
with the opinions you have been expressing on the 
character and condition of mankind. They are too 
disheartening. 

N. Are they true? That is the only inquiry 
worthy of a rational being. 

A. When I say they are too disheartening, I 
mean that they go beyond the truth in the low esti- 
mate which they exhibit of human nature, in the 
present day, I should hardly contest any opinions on 
any other ground. 

N. After all, what have 1 said ? I have said, and 
I repeat, that when we look back into the history 
of the human race, we can scarcely help feeling 
ashamed that we belong to it. Man is an animal 
in a very slight degree rational by nature. It seems 



96 ON THE JPROGRESS 

to require ages upon ages to bring the race to any 
thing like a state of reason — a state where preju- 
dice and passion are subordinate to the understand- 
ing, where man controls the blind impulse of the 
present by a view of the future, and distinctly per- 
ceives his relative position in the universe. It is 
certain that mankind have hitherto never reached 
such a state. Let any one look around him, and 
what does he observe? A few minds perhaps 
capable of raising themselves into the pure atmo- 
sphere of truth, of emancipating themselves from 
the domination of mere instinct, of expatiating 
through the moral and material world with full 
liberty of intellect, and of appreciating the exact 
relation in which they stand to the existences 
around them ; but the majority — nine hundred and 
ninety-nine in a thousand — the slaves of prejudice 
and the dupes of passion, inflicting misery upon 
themselves and others from gross ignorance of the 
real tendencies of action and the rational object of 
existence ; shrinking from truth as from a spectre ; 
frightened by imaginary terrors ; incapable of 
pursuing more than one step of argument, yet 
pertinacious in their own infallibility ; humbling 
themselves in the dust as unworthy to approach 
the God whom they tremble to think of, while they 
confess his unbounded benevolence, yet assuming 
their actions to be of such immense importance to 
him as to require the discipline of eternity at his 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 97 

hands. The meanness of men's reasoning powers 
in general is almost incredible. Locke, if I mis- 
take not, terms a man who can advance two steps 
in reasoning a man of two syllogisms. There are 
few such to be found. The majority of mankind 
are men of one syllogism, or of less. The faculty of 
taking two steps in reasoning without assistance — 
leading strings — is rare: that of taking three be- 
longs to one in an age. It stamps a man as the 
wonder of his day. 

A. Yet with these mean understandings, these 
limited faculties, how much has the human race 
accomplished? You must admit, that men in the 
present day are superior, wonderfully superior, 
in knowledge and wisdom to their progenitors 
three thousand or even three hundred years ago ; 
that they have discarded some methods of render- 
ing themselves miserable, and opened anew fresh 
springs of happiness. In a word, there has been 
an advance in the discrimination of good and evil. 
You will not contend that men are incapable of 
progressive improvement, chained for ever like the 
brutes to the circle of individual attainment, doom- 
ed generation after generation to commence at one 
point and to tread the same round. No ! human 
improvement, thank God, admits of successive ad- 
vances ; each generation starts from the ground at 
which the last had expended its strength in arriv- 
ing ; and I will venture to say, that this single cir- 

9 



98 ON THE PROGRESS 

cumstance is sufficient to carry the race to a degree 
of knowledge which it is impossible for us to con- 
ceive. Oh ! that 1 could live to see the results of 
another century of progression ! 

N, The principle of the progressive improve- 
ment of mankind, and the consequences resulting 
from it, I acknowledge as well as yourself. It was 
implied indeed in my assertion, that it required 
ages upon ages to bring the race to any thing like 
a state of rationality ; an assertion, which, while it 
admits the tendency to improvement, certainly en- 
courages no very sanguine expectations of the 
rapidity of the progress. In our anticipations on 
this point we differ. When I look back on the 
past, or around me on the present, I cannot help 
feeling convinced, that if men are to advance, as I 
think they inevitably must, it will be by a very 
slow march. There are a thousand obstacles in 
the way. It is but a poor eulogy on human capa- 
bilities, that mankind have been four or five thou- 
sand years in attaining to their present partial and 
imperfect civilization, which, extolled as it gene- 
rally has been, is scarcely entitled to the appella- 
tion of semi-barbarism. If we are to be guided by 
experience, if we are to expect hereafter only what 
we have found in the past, our anticipations of the 
rapidity of future improvement will not be very 
extravagant, 

A. Consider the wars and disorders which have 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 99 

heretofore constantly checked the career of civiliza- 
tion. But for the madness of ambition, how far it 
would have already advanced ! 

N. These wars and disorders were the necessary 
consequences of those narrow faculties, that inca- 
pacity of reasoning, that blindness to their real in- 
terests, which I charge on the human race. To 
say in defence of human nature, that it would have 
improved faster had not these things happened, is 
only to affirm, that if it had been endowed with 
superior sense, it would not have exhibited so much 
folly. 

A. There is one thing, however, which you must 
allow to be much in favour of those anticipations 
which look for a more rapid advance in future than 
has hitherto been experienced — the invention of 
printing. 

N. That indeed is the noblest acquisition of 
science : it is the impregnable fortress of civiliza- 
tion ; no political changes, no physical vicissitudes, 
no mutation short of the complete extinction of 
mankind, can henceforth ever restore the empire 
of the world to ignorance. But admitting all the 
benefits of this invention, it is not in the nature of 
the human mind to advance with rapidity. The 
onward strides of improvement may be sure, but 
they will be slow. Genius may burst away from 
the steady march of the race, and penetrate into 
regions which it will be the work of future gene- 



100 ON THE PROGRESS 

rations completely to explore ; but all its energy 
will not suffice to drag on the main body faster 
than the regular pace to which the nature of its 
powers inevitably confine it. 

A. You appear to forget, that as by the press the 
cultivation of knowledge extends itself over greater 
numbers, a greater portion of talent will be brought 
out; prejudices will give way in a shorter time, 
and improvements be adopted with less reluctance. 
Consider how rapid has been the progress of 
science within the last fifty years, compared with 
an equal term during the middle ages. 

N. Of physical science it is true. It labours 
under a part only of those obstructions which im- 
pede the science of human nature. Yet even here 
we may mark several of those impediments which 
doom the species to a tardy progression ; the dul- 
ness and inertness of the faculties to discover truth, 
the interests arrayed against its reception, the diffi- 
culty of sundering the established bonds of mental 
association. Besides, there is a puny sort of self- 
love in every department of knowledge, which 
desires the prevalence and stability of opinions be- 
cause they are its opinions. It cannot find in its 
heart to fancy itself at all in error. Instead of 
wishing for the progress and spread of truth, how- 
ever subversive of established doctrines, and that 
mankind should be continually detecting their errors 
and adding to their acquirements, instead of exult- 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 101 

ing at the prospect which the future presents of 
receding darkness and advancing light, this con- 
temptible selfishness would have the world to stand 
still for ever at the point which itself has attained, 
and poises its own gratification against the compre- 
hensive interests of mankind, its own shallow pre- 
tensions against the growing science of the age, and 
the intellect of myriads of unborn generations. It 
would bind down all the great spirits which are yet 
to advance the happiness and elevate the dignity of 
man to its own blind dogmas and narrow sphere of 
vision, and permit no other intellectual movement 
in the world than an approximation to those opi- 
nions which itself has chanced to adopt. 

N. You are severe. 

N. Severe ! Would it not exhaust the patience 
of the meekest philosopher — a designation to which 
1 have no pretensions — to see men who have pos- 
sessed themselves of the established quantum of 
information, constantly parading it as the ne plus 
ultra of knowledge, and stifling or attempting to 
stifle every symptom of improvement, lest their own 
personal consequence should be scratched ? 

A. I am perfectly aware of the extensive 
prevalence of the feelings you describe, which 
joined to the disinclination, perhaps disability, that 
every man has to enter into trains of ideas totally 
at variance with his habitual modes of thinking, 
protract the reign of error even where interest is 

9* 



102 ON THE PROGRESS 

not engaged in its support. The conduct of the 
medical men in relation to Harvey's discovery is a 
notorious instance in point. But these obstacles 
give way. 

N. True. Men die off; and they are succeeded 
by others, whose minds are imbued with truer 
principles, and who do not feel their reputation 
pledged against improvement. This, however, is a 
slow process. By your own showing, a prejudice 
exposed as false can perish only with the generation 
to which it adheres. A rapid advance truly, when 
every step of improvement requires at least an age! 

A. We have instances, nevertheless, in which 
discoveries have met with a pretty general recep- 
tion in their own times. Those of modern chemistry 
for instance. 

N. Yet Priestley could not part with the doctrine 
of phlogiston. As he was a man who held his 
opinions with less than common pertinacity, an 
enquirer open to conviction to the day of his death — 
not one of those who early in life packed up their 
miserable stock of knowledge and label it complete — 
his is a striking instance how tenaciously a theory 
once received adheres to the understanding. 1 
grant, however, that physical science advances more 
rapidly, and disseminates its improvements with 
more ease, than moral and political knowledge. It 
would seem, that just in proportion as knowledge is 
unimportant it meets with a readier reception. 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 103 

A. Do you really intend to insinuate that che- 
mistry, and the other physical sciences, are unim- 
portant ? Call to mind the power which they have 
given to man over nature — how well they have 
answered to Lord Bacon's description of the rational 
end of knowledge. 

N. I do not call these pursuits unimportant, ex- 
cept comparatively; but I maintain that they are 
incalculably inferior in their effects upon human 
happiness to those sciences which explore the 
nature of man and the tendencies of action, and 
which in the present day, notwithstanding the 
circumstances which force them in some de- 
gree on general reflection, are disgracefully ne- 
glected. 

A. Not at all. The science of political economy 
has surely received its due share of attention. 
Some of the first intellects of modern times have 
fixed their grasp upon it. 

N. True. This is an exception, a glorious ex- 
ception ; and if any thing could render me more 
sanguine in my anticipations of political melioration, 
it would be the progress of this science, the irresis- 
tible manner in which it has insinuated itself into 
our councils and moulded our policy. Twenty or 
thirty years ago the doctrines of Adam Smith were 
apparently a dead letter; his book was considered 
by that sapient race, the practical men, as full of 
Utopian dreams. Pitt did not fully comprehend it, 



104 ON THE PROGRESS 

and Fox declared it past understanding.* A first- 
rate statesman in the present day would be scouted 
for equal ignorance. The prevalence of this sci- 
ence will do good. Its severe logic, its rigorous 
requisitions to keep in view the meaning of terms, 
the beautiful dependence of its long series of pro- 
positions, will accustom men to think with more 
accuracy and precision, while they render it even a 
delightful exercise for a masculine understanding. 
It is a lever which will move the world. 

A. We have here then an instance in which a 
science, and that not a physical science, has ad- 
vanced with considerable rapidity. 

N. Pardon me. Political economy is itself a 
proof that the dissemination of new truths is restrict- 
ed by the nature of the human mind to what I may 
venture to term a very moderate rate. It was neces- 
sary that the contemporaries of Adam Smith should 
be succeeded by another generation before his doc- 
trines could prevail. 

A. What will you say, however, to the improve- 
ments of Malthus, Say, Ricardo, and others ? These 
have been generally, if not universally, admitted by 
their contemporaries. 

N. Where is your proof? Not to enter into the 

* Mr. Butler in his Reminiscences tells us, that Mr. Fox 
confessed he had never read the Wealth of Nations, adding, 
u there is something in all these subjects which passes my 
comprehension ; something so wide, that I could never embrace 
them myself, or find any one who did."— Vol. i. p. 187. 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 105 

question, whether the writings of these authors con- 
tain any valuable discoveries, I will venture to as- 
sert, that the number of people, who fully understand 
the true nature of any improvements which have 
been introduced into the science since the days of 
Adam Smith, scarcely amounts to a few hundreds. 
No ! we must all die before these things can be 
generally understood. To comprehend them be- 
longs not to our age. 

A. It is my turn to ask for proof. 

N. I refer you to the Reviews. How few of the 
reviewers of Mr. Malthus, M. Say, or Mr. Ricardo 
have ventured to grapple with their doctrines ! To 
enter into reasonings of this kind is a tasking of the 
intellect to which few writers can submit, and which 
would scarcely promote the popularity of a periodi- 
cal work. I refer you to the house of commons. 
Of the number of those who are nightly employed 
in the discussion of economical topics, how many 
are there fully in possession of even the acknow- 
ledged principles of the subject ? 

A. Neither the Reviews, nor the house of com- 
mons, can be reasonably expected to be in the very 
van of a difficult science, although doubtless splen- 
did exceptions might be named. But to return to 
your assertion respecting the slow advance of the 
science of man, I am disposed to think it more 
rapid than you are willing to allow, and that the 
contrary opinion on your part arises from the few 



106 ON THE PROGRESS 

changes which have appeared in our civil and po- 
litical institutions. Now it is very possible that 
knowledge on a particular subject may have been 
making a great progress for years, and yet not have 
manifested itself in the modification of existing in- 
stitutions. Nay, this seems absolutely necessary : 
for, before any effects can appear in practice, it is 
requisite, in the first place, that the discoveries 
should have been made ; and, secondly, that they 
should have been familiarized by dissemination. 
Hence it is not fair to measure the progress of a 
science at any given period by its practical results. 

N. I concede some weight to your remarks. But 
what examples would you select of improvements 
in moral and political science apart from practice? 

A. After political economy, which we have al- 
ready considered, I should adduce legislation, mo- 
ral and intellectual philosophy generally, and the 
philosophy of physical inquiry in particular, and 
also the theory of language. 

N. 1 see whom you are aiming at. You doubt- 
less have in your eye Bentham, Dr. Thomas Brown, 
Home Tooke, and a few others. 

A. You might have guessed more widely of the 
truth. I hesitate not to express my conviction, 
that these writers have made important advances 
in their several pursuits. I know the reluctance with 
which their claims are admitted, but 1 suspect that 
few have taken the trouble to understand their w r orks. 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 107 

N. So! You are coming round I perceive to my 
opinion ; for you must acknowledge, that if few 
have taken the trouble to understand writers of this 
class and character, the rate at which their dis- 
coveries are propagated must be very tardy. Be- 
lieve me, my dear sir, these men belong to the next 
age. The truths, which they have promulgated, 
must be familiarized in elementary treatises, taught 
in the schools, wrought into our lighter literature, 
and instilled into the minds of another 'generation 
before they can be generally received. It is a com- 
mon error to consider the achievements of a few 
great minds as indicative of the state of civilization 
to which the community at large has attained. 
Men of genius leave their contemporaries a cen- 
tury behind. There is an eloquent passage in a 
writer of some celebrity so much to the point, that 
1 must beg to quote it in illustration of my views. 
" We cannot help remarking," says he, " what a 
deception we suffer to pass on us from history. It 
celebrates some period in a nation's career as pre- 
eminently illustrious for magnanimity, lofty enter- 
prise, literature, and original genius. There was 
perhaps a learned and vigorous monarch, and there 
were Cecils and Walsinghams, and Shakespeares 
and Spensers, and Sidneys and Raleighs, with many 
other powerful thinkers and actors, to render it the 
proudest age of our national glory. And we thought- 
lessly admit on our imagination this splendid exhi- 



108 PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 

bition as representing, in some indistinct manner, 
the collective state of the people in that age. The 
ethereal summits of a tract of the moral world are 
conspicuous and fair in the lustre of heaven, and 
we take no thought of the immensely greater pro- 
portion of it which is sunk in gloom and covered 
with fogs. The general mass of the population, 
whose physical vigour, indeed, and courage, and 
fidelity to the interests of the country, were of such 
admirable avail to the purposes, and under the direc- 
tion of the mighty spirits that wielded their rough 
agency; this great mass was sunk in such mental bar- 
barism, as to be placed at about the same distance 
from their illustrious intellectual chiefs, as the hordes 
of Scythia from the most elevated minds of Athens. n * 

A. A noble passage, eloquent in language and 
felicitous in illustration : but you surely do not 
regard it as applicable to modern times? 

N. I look upon it as a pretty faithful picture of 
the state of things in the present day. He who, 
not content with imposing reports and statistical 
results, comes into actual contact with the real 
body of the people, will find an immeasurable differ- 
ence between the average of their intelligence and 
the luminous and comprehensive views which fill the 
eye of a Bentham or a Brown, or any other man of 
genius whose name may be employed to mark the 
farthest point of intellectual progression. 

* Essay on Popular Ignorance, by John Foster, p. 71. 



ON 



THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



PART II. 

N. Jt appears to me, that in our last conversation 
on the progressive improvement of mankind, we 
differed only in regard to its rapidity, you contend- 
ing for a much quicker progress than I am disposed 
to anticipate. The difference between us, how- 
ever, scarcely affects any of the important conse- 
quences flowing from the general principle. 

A. Your arguments, although forcibly urged, by 
no means shook the previous conviction of my 
mind ; but what are the consequences to which you 
particularly allude ? 

N. The most cursory glance at the subject is suf- 
ficient to suggest a thousand valuable inferences, 
some of them widely at variance with prevalent 
opinions. For instance, if all kinds of knowledge 
necessarily improve, it is vain to look for the sound- 
est principles, the deepest insight into nature, in 
our older writers. 

A. That is a conclusion which is certainly little 
10 



110 ON THE PROGRESS 

accordant with the theories of the day. Even I, 
sanguine as I am of the future, should hesitate to 
accede to it. 

N. The ground of this prepossession in favour of 
old writers is evidently a false analogy, which Lord 
Bacon has well exposed. In every subject which 
admits of an accession of knowledge, the best wri- 
ters must be in time superseded. To a later age 
they must often appear tedious, wasting their pow- 
ers on trifles, attempting formally to establish what 
is obviously absurd or what no one disputes, or task- 
ing their strength in the prolix exposure of fallacies, 
the true character of which may now be shown in 
a few sentences. Such works after a certain period 
are consulted only on account of their reputation, 
for their style, or for the pleasure of tracking the 
steps of a great mind. The works of Bacon and 
Locke are already becoming instances in point. 
They are more talked of than read ; and if you will 
pardon a homely expression, oftener dipped into 
than waded through. 

A. We have works, nevertheless, and those not 
works of art, but what in contra-distinction may be 
called works of knowledge, which will not be rea- 
dily superseded. 

N. It would be difficult to name them. I will 
not deny, however, the possibility of a doctrine 
being so concisely and clearly established, that the 
demonstration may sever be displaced by a better. 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 1 11 

Even in such cases, the doctrine in process of time 
appears so intuitive as not to require proof. 

A. It seems to be an unavoidable inference from 
your remarks, that the study of old authors is a 
waste of labour. 

N. Much of it is an exhaustion of the strength to 
no purpose. This obsolete learning is well enough 
for minds of a secondary cast, but it only serves to 
hamper the man of original genius. It is unwise 
in such a one to enter very minutely into the his- 
tory of the science to which he devotes himself, — 
more especially at the outset. Let him perfectly 
master the present state of the science, and he will 
be prepared to push it farther while the vigour of 
his intellect remains unbroken ; but if he previously 
attempt to embrace all that has been written on the 
subject, to make himself acquainted with all its ex- 
ploded theories and obsolete doctrines, his mind 
will probably be too much entangled in their intri- 
cacies to make any original efforts ; too wearied 
with tracing past achievements to carry the science 
to a farther degree of excellence. When a man has 
to take a leap he is materially assisted by stepping 
backward a few paces, and giving his body an im- 
pulse by a short run to the starting place ; but if 
his precursory range is too extensive, he exhausts 
his force before he comes to the principal effort. 

A. The general voice is against your doctrine. 
Old authors are universally considered as treasures 



1 12 ON THE PROGRESS 

of deep thought, mines of wisdom, from which the 
young aspirant after distinction is recommended to 
extract the ore, which he is to beat out and embel- 
lish for the public use. I think you underrate them. 

N. Do not mistake me. I reverence as much as 
any man the great intellects which have been em- 
ployed in raising the structure of science. It is no 
disparagement to the illustrious men of past times, 
that their errors are pointed out, and that shorter 
and easier methods are found of accomplishing that 
which it required all their efforts to effect. With 
intellects far greater perhaps than any subsequent 
labourers in the same cause, they may be surpassed 
in extent and accuracy of knowledge at a later 
period by men of the most limited capacity. Such 
is the necessary condition of human improvement. 
All that an individual can effect is comparatively tri- 
vial. His powers of original inference are bounded 
to a few steps. The works of one must be elevated 
on those of another. Meanwhile beauty of style, 
elegance of illustration, perspicuity of arrangement, 
and ingenuity of inference, — all that constitutes a 
book a work of art, — may be imperishable. 

A. Your view of the subject seems to militate 
against all claims to originality. If one man is to 
build on the discoveries of another, his best works 
can only be like stones in the edifice, — while it is 
surely the ambition of every man of genius to erect 
a structure of his own. 



Or KNOWLEDGE* 113 

N. This notion, that a man should produce some- 
thing exclusively his own, unconnected with any 
thing previously accomplished, in order to entitle 
him to the praise of originality, has given rise to a 
good deal of vain contention about the claims of 
individuals to particular discoveries and inventions. 
A casual expression, a barren assertion, an imper- 
fect and unsteady approximation to an important 
truth, has been singled out to invalidate the just 
pretensions of the man of original genius, who has 
planted a firm foot on ground of which it is possible 
indeed that a glimpse had been previously caught, 
but which had never been actually reached ; and 
who has opened to our delighted minds a vista of 
consequences which seems more like a creation 
than a discovery. Thus the originality of Newton 
in his doctrine of gravitation has been disputed on 
the ground of some approaches to this principle by 
Hook; that of Hume, in his views of the relation 
of cause and effect, on the strength of expressions 
in sundry writers ; that of Malthus, in his princi- 
ples of population, on account of some passages in 
Wallace, Stuart, and Smith ; and that of Dalton, 
in his chemical theory of definite proportions, in 
consequence of an imperfect anticipation of it by 
Higgins. The truth is, that the originality de- 
manded by such critics is an originality which can- 
not exist ; it is purely chimerical, and the ambition 
of attaining it can lead only to extravagant para- 
10* 



114 ON THE PROGRESS 

doxes and baseless theories. Whoever wishes to 
be original in the only practicable way, must rise 
from the improvements of others. A living writer 
has well characterised this originality in the case 
of the doctrine of population, when he remarks 
that Mr. Malthus took an obvious and familiar 
truth, which till his time had been a barren truism, 
and showed that it teemed with consequences. 

A. I acknowledge that he who can do this may 
well be content with himself. 

N. Yet the critics will quote the familiar truth 
to prove that the consequences were not original. 
But this is absurd on any theory but that which re- 
quires in every invention or discovery a perfect in- 
sulation from preceding achievements, before it is 
entitled to that praise. The slightest connection 
with what has been previously accomplished seems 
in the eyes of these dreamers to divest it of this 
character. To trace the way in which it was ef- 
fected, or the steps of the process, is with them the 
same thing as destroying its claims to admiration. 
In contradiction to all this, I will venture to affirm 
that it is invariably owing to the state of a science 
at the time when a man takes it up, that he is able 
to make his peculiar discoveries. Hence those fu- 
gitive glimpses, those scattered lights, those casual 
touches in writings of the same date. The minds 
of a number of individuals seem to be contempo- 
raneously labouring with obscure intimations of the 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 115 

same truth, till in the most vigorous amongst them 
it struggles from its obscurity and bursts into day. 
" The greatest inventor in science, " says an emi- 
nent philosopher, " was never able to do more than 
to accelerate the progress of discovery."* 

A. But surely your representation of the matter 
has a tendency to lessen the merit of invention, or 
at least our admiration of it. 

N. On the contrary, it shows us where admira- 
tion is due, and what are the grounds on which we 
should grant it, as well as explodes the flimsy pre- 
tences on which it is sometimes professed to be 
withheld. What is still better, it exhibits the real 
process of invention and discovery, and proves 
that they must necessarily go on, however slowly, 
so long as there is any thing to invent or dis- 
cover. 

A. In this point we perfectly agree. Hence the 
folly of shutting the mind to further improvement, — 
of conceiving, as many people are apt to do, that 
they have mastered the sciences once and for 
ever. 

N. Mastered the sciences ! A man in the present 
day with regard to the sciences is something like 
Virgil's boatman, si brachia forte remisit, he loses 
his place— he is in effect carried backward. There 
is a perpetual necessity for exertion if he would 

* Playfair's Works, vol. ii. p. 52. 



116 ON THE PROGRESS 

maintain his relative position in the world of intel- 
lect ; and from this necessity arises much of that 
hostility to improvement which characterises the 
dull and the indolent. Thus what should yield de- 
light proves a source of mortification ; for what in 
reality can be more exhilarating than the thought, 
that thousands of minds are constantly at work 
upon new improvements and discoveries, that every 
year may bring some correction to our errors and 
solve some of our difficulties, and that as long as 
we live, new lights will pour upon our understand- 
ings? A right view T of the subject would show us, 
that every man of genius, of enterprise, and of re- 
search, is labouring for our gratification, smoothing 
the path for our steps, and illuminating objects to 
delight our vision. When the warm glow of youth- 
ful feeling has passed away, I know of nothing so 
worthy to replace it ; nothing so well calculated to 
relieve the insipidity of middle life, as the prospect 
of continual advances in knowledge, inspiring hopes 
which are perpetually gratified and perpetually 
renewed. An adequate view — a deep impression 
of the progressive character of science is utterly in- 
consistent with that overweening confidence which 
causes a man to place his own opinions as the limit 
of improvement. 

A. If this is preposterous in an individual, it is 
surely equally so in a body of men. What then 
shall we say of a set of immutable propositions on 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 1 1 7 

any subject whatever 1 — a series of doctrines laid 
down as absolute truths never to be altered ? 

N. 1 should certainly pronounce it a grand mis- 
take in the science of the human mind. There is 
not a single subject which exercises the faculties of 
man that may not be improved, — nay that will not 
!>e improved, — by the efforts of successive genera- 
tions. It would be an unpardonable degree of 
arrogance in an assemblage of the wisest men that 
ever lived, supposing that they could be brought 
together, to circumscribe any subject whatever 
within the narrow boundaries of their own opinions. 
It would betray a total misconception of the relations 
of the human mind to the objects around it. I 
have contended, that men in the present day are 
superior in knowledge to their predecessors, — but 
on the same grounds those who come after us will 
be superior to the existing generation. It is highly 
probable indeed, how mortifying soever the reflec- 
tion may be to our personal consequence, that we 
in this age are mere barbarians compared with the 
race who shall hereafter fill the earth ; and surely 
for us to erect a standard of opinion for beings so like- 
ly to be infinitely superior to ourselves is too absurd 
to need exposure, and can scarcely fail to provoke 
many a compassionate smile in the future ages of 
the world. 

A. Absurd enough in all conscience. We are 
too apt, I confess, to consider our own age as en- 



118 ON THE PROGRESS 

lightened almost to the utmost extent of human 
capacity. When we reflect upon the wonderful 
discoveries of modern astronomy; on the brilliant 
operations of chemical analysis ; on the new lights 
darted into the gloom of past ages by geology ; on 
the comprehensive truths of political economy, — 
when we survey our ships and our commerce, our 
steam-engines and our gas-lights and balloons, our 
canals, and piers, and bridges, — in the exultation of 
having taken a giant-stride, we fancy ourselves 
already arrived at the goal. The truth is, however, 
that all these considerations are but so many argu- 
ments for modesty and diffidence. If the present 
age has excelled those which have preceded it, this 
result is owing to circumstances still in full activity, 
and which will inevitably carry the next generation 
far beyond us. It is often said that we are presump- 
tuous in thinking ourselves more knowing than our 
ancestors, but we forget the presumption of arrogat- 
ing a superiority over our successors. 

JN. It is curious to speculate on the consequences 
of this inevitable progression. The multiplication 
of books, for instance, will give rise to some singular 
phenomena. What a vast accumulation of lite- 
rature, should the world continue a thousand or 
twenty thousand years longer without a geological 
submersion ! What a weight of materials every 
year is adding to the stock of the historian ! Fn 
process of time it will require the whole life of a 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 119 

man to become acquainted with the transactions of 
former ages, and the longest life will be insufficient 
to master the literature of a single country. 

A. It will be the reign of retrospective reviews. 
A thousand years hence the literature of our own 
age may possibly furnish half a dozen nibbles to 
these fishers in the waters of oblivion. The splen- 
dour of intellect which envelopes us will have dwin- 
dled into a mere luminous point, scarcely making 
its way athwart the intervening space, — a star 
faintly visible in the night of ages. How mortifying 
to the personal vanity which makes itself the very 
sun of a system ! But if we indulge in speculations 
of this nature, we shall inevitably draw on our our- 
selves the imputation of being visionary advocates 
of the perfectibility of man. 

N. Such an imputation will scarcely be fixed on 
me, after what 1 have said in a former conversation 
on the slow progress of the human race. That there 
will be a progress, however, and an incessant one, 
is so far from being a visionary speculation, that I 
scarcely know a proposition which rests on a firmer 
basis. And the particular speculation on the future 
phenomena of literature is equally well founded. It 
is obvious that the art of printing has produced a 
complete revolution in the world of letters during 
the few centuries which have elapsed since its in- 
vention : the movement will continue — will be ac- 
celerated; the causes are still in activity, and 



120 ON THE PROGRESS 

acquiring new force. We have merely to represent 
to ourselves therefore a repetition of what has 
already happened, only on a larger scale and with 
a somewhat more rapid career. Our conclusions 
on this subject must be drawn, not from the history 
of antiquity, but from that of modern times. Had 
Greece possessed the art of printing, the story of 
the human race would havje been different beyond 
all conception from what it is. 

A. If it had saved the world only from those ages 
of disputation, in which the human mind seemed to 
spin round a circle, without a single step of ad- 
vancement, the benefit would have been invaluable. 
It is useless, however, to imagine what might have 
happened, a more interesting inquiry is what will 
the future bring? Literature, science, political 
institutions, religion, — all must pass through va- 
rious changes, if there is any correctness in the 
principle of progressive improvement. 

N. Literature and science we have already ad- 
verted to. A progress in these must be accompanied 
by progressive changes in our social and political 
institutions. That they have not arrived at per- 
fection, the slightest glance at the misery around 
us is all that is requisite to prove. The supposition 
that they will not be subject to changes would imply, 
either that while other kinds of knowledge were 
daily advancing, the science of social happiness was 
as complete as the nature of the subject allowed, 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 121 

and therefore susceptible of no improvement; or 
that the happiness of communities admitted of no 
addition, their misery of no diminution, from the 
most thorough insight into the various causes which 
produced them. The history of every country 
proves that a knowledge of these causes is one of 
the most difficult of acquisitions ; that on no subject 
is a man more easily deluded, less capable of ex- 
tensive views, guilty of grosser mistakes, and yet 
more inveterately pertinacious in thinking himself 
infallible. Nor is there any subject on which the 
correction of an apparently small error has teemed 
with such important benefits to the world. 

A. From all which it most indubitably follows, 
that political knowledge and political institutions are 
predestined to improvement. What a source of sad 
anticipation to a multitude of politicians ! 

N. Already great changes have taken place, as 
any one w r ill own who is at all conversant with 
the history of the past. Greater are in embryo. 
The blind veneration for rank, the feudal feeling, is 
obviously on the decline, and it is probable that it 
will be nearly extirpated in the course of ages. 
The tendency of political change is now evidently 
to republicanism ; and it is not unlikely that the 
existing governments of Europe will gradually 
approximate to the form adopted in the United 
States of America. That form is at present un- 
suitable to the feelings and habits of Europeans, 

11 



122 ON THE PROGRESS 

which still retain a strong tinge of the spirit of the 
middle ages. There are certain principles, however, 
which are making daily advances, and which in 
proportion as they subvert the ancient spirit of 
hereditary attachment, will render it unnecessary 
and substitute a better in its place. Such are the 
principles — that government is for the benefit of the 
whole community ; that to ensure the attainment 
of this end, the will of the majority ought to prevail ; 
that to secure the benefits of government, the people 
must strictly conform to the regulations which they 
themselves have imposed ; and the corollaries flow- 
ing from these propositions. Changes of this kind 
must not be expected too soon. We may alter on a 
sudden the forms of polity, but we cannot suddenly 
transform the spirits of men. This is the effect of 
time, or what is meant by that phrase, of innume- 
rable successive circumstances, and it cannot be 
either much accelerated or much retarded. The 
slow progress of mankind is here more apparent 
than any where. 

A. From your opinion respecting the tendency 
of political change to republicanism I must dissent; 
in no instance have we seen this form of govern- 
ment productive of greater advantages than the 
mixed; and I am strongly inclined to question 
whether any happier expedient can be devised than 
the hereditary descent of power. 

N. 1 am not anxious at present to discuss the 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 123 

merits of any forms of government. All that I mean 
to contend for is, that whichever is really the best 
must in the natural course of improvement establish 
its claims to preference. Men learn these things 
slowly, but experience must ultimately force them 
upon their understandings. The change in men's 
religious views will also probably be great. As 
mankind learn to reason more justly, they will see 
the absurditv of many of their tenets. Thev will 
discover more and more clearly, that instead of the 
wise and benevolent Author of the universe, they 
have been worshipping an image in their own 
minds, endowed with similar imperfect faculties 
and passions to their own, nay, even invested with 
principles of action drawn from human nature in 
its rudest state. Men's conception of the Deity 
can never go beyond although it frequently falls 
short of their moral opinions. He who has a nar- 
row, confused^ and indistinct view of what is really 
w T ise and admirable in human qualities, cannot have 
a clear and comprehensive idea of God. Hence 
as moral knowledge advances, as mankind come 
more and more to fix their approbation on actions 
according to their actual desert, their conception 
of the Deity will become more refined, more ele- 
vated, and more worthy of its object. The proper 
way to exalt man's veneration of God is to teach 
him what is really just, benevolent, and magnani- 
mous in his own race. It is melancholy to reflect 



124 ON THE PROGRESS 

on ibe sort of attributes and actions which are daily 
ascribed to the Supreme Being. 

A. I have frequently been struck with the fact 
to which you have alluded, that men's conception 
of the Deity generally falls short of their moral 
opinions; but 1 have never been able to account 
satisfactorily for so remarkable a phenomenon. 
How is it, that even in the present day theological 
systems continue to invest the Deity, as you have 
expressed it, with principles of action drawn from 
human nature in its rudest state, and long since 
practically exploded in every civilized country? 

N. The awfulness of the subject combines with 
the interests of men to produce a tardy application 
of their improved knowledge to their conception of 
the Author of the universe. It is as if they enter- 
tained an obscure and undefined apprehension, that 
any alteration in their ideas regarding him would 
not simply be a change in their own minds, but 
would involve a modification of the nature and hap- 
piness of the Supreme Being himself. The venera- 
tion which they feel towards their Creator diffuses 
itself over their own dogmas. But your question 
has diverted me from the natural course of my re- 
marks. 1 was going to observe, that mankind will 
not only necessarily perceive the absurdity of many 
of their tenets, but they will especially become 
sensible of the folly and wickedness of intolerance, 
that never-dying worm which preys on the vitals of 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 125 

human felicity. I am never so inclined to feel con- 
tempt for my own species as when I look into the 
history of religious persecution. It presents to us 
a combination of all that is weak with all that is 
wicked in our nature, — the senseless activity of an 
idiot destroying his own happiness, with the malig- 
nity of a demon blasting that of others. 

A. Language is too feeble to express the deep 
execration which is its just due. But I own I am 
more struck with the extreme folly, the childish 
weakness, the incapacity of just reasoning, involv- 
ed in the slightest act of intolerance, than with any 
other of its features. In point of mere logic, such 
an act is absolutely disgraceful to the intellectual 
character of any one capable of drawing a single 
inference. Were it not for the sufferings of the 
victim, it would be altogether ludicrous. The 
puny, pitiful attempts at intolerance in our own 
day, are miserably post-dated, — absurd from their 
pretensions and contemptible from their impotence. 

N. With my whole soul 1 agree with you as to 
the sentiments which these attempts ought to in- 
spire ; but 1 am of opinion that they are not so ill- 
timed nor so impotent as you imagine : in other 
words, I consider that there yet exists a more ex- 
tensive spirit of intolerance than you are aware of; 
subdued indeed from its original savageness, but 
deeply rooted and tenacious. There are also to be 
found more important cases of intolerance than 
11* 



126 ON THE PROGRESS 

your language implies. From all that I have my- 
self observed of the spirit of society, I am decidedly 
of opinion that the sympathies of the majority of 
the nation are in almost every case against, and not 
in favour of the victim. 

A. I should be pained to believe it. 

N. I am convinced you will find it so ; and this 
brings us again to the point before discussed, the 
over-estimation of the attainments and real civiliza- 
tion of the present age. The spirit of society on 
this subject may be looked upon as the thermometer 
of civilization, — at least a high degree of what we 
include in that term cannot possibly exist where 
intolerance prevails. The two things are mutually 
destructive. The same remark may be applied to 
a still more enormous evil, or one at least that pre- 
sents itself in greater and more distinct masses, — 
war. The existence of war at all is a tremendous 
proof that mankind are not civilized. Again then 
we must conclude that w 7 e over-estimate our pro- 
gress ; that we are really but a little way removed 
from barbarism, in comparison with the possible 
point at which the race may arrive. And this 
would be a most salutary conviction ; for while it 
would add to our alacrity by teaching us how 
much there was yet to discover, it would abate our 
presumption in the perfection of our present attain- 
ments. If I do not deceive myself, I foresee the 
time (far distant, alas !) when mankind shall awake 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 127 

to a full sense at once of their actual imperfections 
and of their capacity for illimitable improvement ; 
when they shall cease to create their own misery, 
and to lavish their admiration on qualities that 
thrive on their ruin: "when almost all the great 
political wonders, the idols of history, stripped one 
after another of the vain splendour thrown around 
them, will appear nothing more than the frivolous 
and often fatal sports of the infancy of the human 



* Rapporls du Physique et du Moral de l'Homrae, par J. G. 
Cabanis, tome i, page 340. 



ON 



THE PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE. 



PART III. 

A. In our previous conversations we have touch- 
ed on the present state of society, but only in a ge- 
neral way ; and we were chiefly occupied with the 
progress of the human race, and the principles on 
which such a progress might be looked for. I should 
like to hear your sentiments on some other features 
in the intellectual condition of our own times. My 
friend B here, who differs in his general views from 
both of us, will assist me in the task of contesting 
any questionable propositions. 

N. The field is wide : we have already endea- 
voured to estimate the point reached in the scale of 
civilization ; what other part of the subject have 
you particularly in view ? 

A. My views have reference chiefly to the state 
of moral and political intelligence and feeling. I 
think, for my own part, that society is in a curious 
condition in these respects. It seems to be la- 



PROGRESS OP KNOWLEDGE. 129 

bouring with a thousand incongruous principles and 
opinions. 

N. I perfectly agree with you. When we ex- 
amine the actual condition of society, we find 
amazing discrepancies in moral and political senti- 
ment. We find even great contrariety in the same 
individual. He will be found perhaps, without 
being aware of it, maintaining two opinions, mu- 
tually repugnant and contradictory ; one opinion 
probably the result of instillation by his preceptors ; 
the other his own acquisition from reading or con- 
versation. Now, not being in the habit of deduc- 
ing a series of inferences, not being able to follow 
out any doctrine to its consequences, he is insensi- 
ble to the contrariety existing between them, and 
perhaps would regard you with something like hor- 
ror if you were to attempt to point it out. This is 
all very well, and cannot be avoided where, without 
much precision of ideas, there is any thing like a 
determination of the general intellect to moral and 
political inquiries ; where men's knowledge begins 
to outstrip their prejudices, and yet is not disen- 
tangled from them. The same causes however give 
rise to other moral phenomena, not quite so free 
from culpability. 

A. To what do yau allude ? 

N. 1 allude to the concealment of opinions and 
feelings, to the insincerity, to the conventional simu- 
lation, which abound in the present day. Every 



130 ON THE TROGRESS 

one must be struck with the discordance of tone 
between the sentiments of our literature, of our 
public debates, of our formal documents on the 
other hand, and those heard in private society, and 
exhibited in the common habits of life on the other. 
The same individual who has been speaking to the 
popular prejudices of. the day in public, will often 
let you see by a sneer or a jest, or at all events by 
the principles which regulate his daily conduct, 
that he has in reality been playing the actor, and 
duping his audience. Hence our literature does 
not present us with the actual sentiments entertain- 
ed. There is nothing like general sincerity in the 
profession of opinions. The intellect of the age is 
cowed. 

B. A great part of what appears to be insincerity 
may perhaps be ascribed to a want of the power to 
perceive logical inconsistencies, and some part to 
the habit of thoughtlessly expressing in private so- 
ciety opinions not seriously entertained. It has been 
remarked by an able writer, that were we to know 
what was said of us in our absence we could seldom 
gather the real opinions of the speakers : " there 
are so many things said from the mere wantonness 
of the moment, or from a desire to comply with 
the tone of the company; so many from the im- 
pulse of passion, or the ambition to be brilliant ; so 
many idle exaggerations, which the heart in a mo- 
ment of sobriety would disavow ; that frequently the 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 131 

person concerned would learn any thing sooner 
than the opinions entertained of him, and torment 
himself, as injuries of the deepest dye, with things 
injudicious perhaps and censurable, but which 
were the mere sallies of thoughtless levity."* A 
similar observation may be made with regard to 
moral and political opinions. Things are said in 
the social or the listless hour, when the mind 
relaxes from the tension of steady thought, which 
would be disowned when the intellect had collect- 
ed all its forces, and was calmly and solemnly look- 
ing at the whole bearings of the subject. Besides, 
if it were not so, I think you judge the matter too 
rigidly. Actual simulation of opinions I will not 
defend ; but surely there is a species of dissimula- 
tion, or (not to use a word with which unfavoura- 
ble associations are connected) of suppression, 
which far from being culpable may be prudent and 
even meritorious, nay, absolutely necessary. I think 
I once heard you assert, that if any man were now 
to promulgate the moral and political opinions 
(could they be known) which will generally pre- 
vail at the end of two hundred years from this time, 
he would be hooted from society. In this senti- 
ment 1 do not participate, as 1 see no room for so 
immense a change as it supposes, but on your own 
grounds a prudent reserve is commendable. 

* Godwin's Inquirer, p. 312, ed. 1823. 



132 ON THE PROGRESS 

N. The sentiment was expressed perhaps too 
broadly, but without pretending to form a conjec- 
ture as to what such future opinions may be, I think 
it substantially correct. [ will grant you, therefore, 
that it is prudent in a man to suppress any opinions 
flagrantly hostile to popular prejudice ; but it is not, 
you will allow, high-minded ; if it escape our con- 
tempt, it is not a species of conduct to raise the 
glow of enthusiastic admiration, to " dilate our 
strong conception with kindling majesty," and to 
elevate us for a time at least above the dead level 
of our nature. The poet says — 

"Give me the line that ploughs its stately course 
Like the proud swan, conquering the stream by force."* 

And I confess my admiration will always follow him 
who boldly breasts the current of popular prejudice, 
forcing his way by his native energy. Nor can I 
help thinking that such a man, if he combined un- 
deviating coolness, moderation, integrity, and sim- 
plicity of mind, with great intellectual powers, 
would in the end extort the forbearance at least of 
the host of enemies who would rush to the encoun- 
ter from the instinct of fear. 

A. Such conduct would undoubtedly excite the 
admiration of a few, but it would be the destruc- 
tion of the happiness of the individual unless he 

* Cowper. 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 133 

were singularly constituted. It is a fearful thing 
for any man to encounter the execration, or even 
the tacit condemnation, of the society in which he 
lives. And moreover it is questionable whether, 
supposing even his sentiments to be true, he would 
promote the cause by such a bold and reckless 
course. For any system of thoughts to be received 
with effect, the minds of the community must be in 
a state of preparation for it. If promulgated too 
early it is cast back into obscurity by the offended 
prejudices of society, or becomes a prominent ob- 
ject against which they are perpetually exasperating 
themselves. It is a light-house amidst the breakers. 
The genius of a Smeaton in philosophy would be 
required to erect an intellectual structure of this 
kind, capable at once of giving intense light, and 
withstanding the moral turbulence by which it 
would be assailed. A premature disclosure of any 
doctrine, you may rest assured, retards its ultimate 
reception. In fact, a forbearance to utter all that 
a man thinks is a species of continence necessary 
throughout the whole progress of civilization ; at 
every step the commanding minds of the age being 
in one state, and the feelings and opinions of the 
majority in another directly hostile to it. 

B. 1 cannot exactly see the necessity of a discre- 
pancy of this nature ; but admitting that the com- 
manding intellects of the age must thus differ in their 
views on many points from the bulk of mankind, it 

12 



134 ON THE PROGRESS 

by no means follows that all who thus differ are to 
be ranked in that class. On the contrary, I should 
be inclined to say, that to be widely at variance 
with our own age is in most cases a mark of un- 
sound understanding; and this seems more espe- 
cially to follow (turning to N.) from your principles ; 
for if the human mind is exceedingly slow at the 
work of invention and discovery, as I have often 
heard you represent it to be, it is an obvious infer- 
ence, that we are not to look for many of those gi- 
gantic strides which place the man of genius far in 
advance of his contemporaries. The chances are, 
therefore, that singular views are erroneous views. 
Hence a proper diffidence in himself, a sense of 
that liability to error which no one ought to feel 
more deeply than the philosopher, should make him 
hesitate when he finds his opinions peculiar to his 
own mind. 

N. True, it should make him review them, probe 
them to the quick, try them by every possible test ; 
but having done this, it would be absolutely cul- 
pable to suppress them merely from the considera- 
tion that they were singular, and therefore likely 
enough to be tainted with error. The latter indeed 
is a condition under which every man must pro- 
mulgate his opinions. 

A. But to return to the numerous diversities of 
opinion in society : my remark on that head was 
intended to apply not to the discrepancies in the 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 135 

opinions of the same mind, but to the differences 
subsisting between individuals and classes. It is 
astonishing, that with access apparently to the same 
sources of knowledge, under the same civil and 
political institutions, with almost perfect freedom of 
intercommunication, operated upon daily by the 
same current of periodical intelligence from one 
end of the land to the other, pursuing similar 
occupations and similar amusements, the people 
should be divided into so great a variety of sects 
and parties, many of them of the most dissimilar 
and opposite modes of thinking. The fact is strik- 
ingly shown by the publications, and particularly 
the periodical publications, of the day. Thus, not 
to mention that there is one set of journals for the 
ministerial party in politics, another for the oppo- 
sition, another for the reformers, with advocates 
for a thousand intermediate shades of opinion, we 
have journals for the evangelical, the orthodox, the 
unitarians, the methodists, the deists, the phrenolo- 
gists, the co-operatives, and others which might be 
specified ; and these advocating, each of them, doc- 
trines essentially repugnant and contradictory to 
those of all the rest. Is it not strange, that under 
the influence of all the common circumstances 
which 1 have just enumerated, such very opposite 
views should prevail, and be advocated not only 
with considerable knowledge and skill, but with 
the most thorough conviction of their truth ? Does 



136 ON THE PROGRESS 

it not prove, either that truth is unattainable in 
moral, religious, and political inquiries, or that men 
have rushed into the midst of these subjects without 
stopping to ascertain the first principles on which 
they all must agree, and thus have involved them- 
selves in a chaos of contradictions ? 

N. You recollect, I dare say, the remark of 
Locke, that although we cannot affirm that there 
are fewer opinions prevalent in the world than there 
are, yet fewer persons entertain them than we are 
apt to suppose ; most people not having any clear 
ideas on those questions about which so much con- 
troversy is raised, and on which they themselves 
loudly assert their positive judgment. 

A. But still you must allow, that the leading 
minds of each party do really hold them, especially 
in cases where interest is out of the question, which 
is sufficient for my purpose, it being in fact still 
more extraordinary, that minds of this description, 
minds consequently of considerable powers and 
superior information, with the same sources open 
to them, should exhibit such contradictory appear- 
ances ; or, in other words, entertain such opposite 
views. 

N. Such discrepancies show that the individual 
circumstances which shape our opinions predomi- 
nate over the general causes to which we are all 
subjected. They can exist only in a very imperfect 
state of knowledge, such as I have contended ours 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 137 

to be, where men's modes of thinking have resulted 
from chances of a thousand kinds, and have not 
originated in a systematic deduction from undenia- 
ble premises. You, 1 think, have well described 
the general course of even thoughtful men, rushing 
into the midst of subjects, without an examination 
' of first principles, and a regular progress from them ; 
or rather they find themselves, from circumstances, 
in the midst of the subjects, and never think of 
remounting to any primary truths, or stepping out 
of the magic circle described around them by the 
age, and country, and rank, in which they came into 
existence. Engrossed with the established ideas of 
their system, they exercise their ingenuity in disco- 
vering the relations of its parts ; and in the pleasure 
of the occupation, they never think of setting them- 
selves at a distance from it, viewing its external 
aspect, marking its position in the world of intellect, 
surveying its relations as a whole to truth and to 
nature. This is frequently exemplified in the la- 
borious trifling of antiquaries and commentators, 
who will often display wonderful skill and acuteness 
in the adjustment of some worthless point, which 
their own exertions alone have invested with some- 
thing like importance. The weakest theory, or the 
most fallacious system of philosophy, will, in like 
manner, hold in bondage the strongest minds, who 
are often so intently occupied with its intrinsic 
relations, as to forget its extrinsic absurdity. In 

12* 



138 ON THE PROGRESS 

the limits by which they are thus circumscribed, 
they sometimes exert the highest powers of in- 
tellect, and leave nothing for us to bewail but 
the barriers with which birth, and education, and 
other circumstances have surrounded their under- 
standings. A mind thus hemmed in, is in a si- 
tuation somewhat similar to that of a man who 
has been shut up in a strong castle from his birth, 
and has therefore had no means of viewing the 
outward appearance and relative position of the 
building. His conception too of external objects, 
as it has been acquired merely by glimpses through 
the window, is narrow and imperfect ; and his com- 
parative estimate of such external objects, and those 
within his reach, must be disproportionate to their 
real difference. Let him once escape from the 
castle, and his ideas undergo a complete revolution. 
He gets into the pure breezes of heaven ; the open 
daylight, and the free exercise of vision. A similar 
happy transition is experienced by the mind which 
has once disengaged itself from the prejudices 
of any system in which it has been cooped up. 
With regard to the diversities of views and doc- 
trines which have led to these remarks, I rejoice to 
see them. I am glad to see the co-operative erecting 
his parallelograms, and the phrenologist mapping 
out the skull. 1 cannot comprehend that delicate 
sensitiveness, which is alarmed at novel and extra- 
ordinary opinions, as if the structure of society 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 139 

would be demolished, and the globe itself shattered 
by their promulgation, 

B. How then are we to deal with doctrines 
which appear to be dangerous ? Are we to stand 
idle and allow them free course? 

N. Examine them: look them in the face: if 
they are false, they will vanish before the gaze of 
scrutiny : if they are true, I dare any man to say 
that they ought to vanish. 

B. Your reply is what I expected, but I have 
another question to ask in which you may find 
more difficulty. Truth is one, error is pernicious ; 
how then can you rejoice in the existence of diver- 
sities by which the uniformity of truth is excluded. 

N. When I say I rejoice, I speak of course in 
reference not to what is absolutely good, but to 
our actual state. The world is full of ignorance and 
error, and I am glad to see a zealous pursuit of 
even singular and eccentric views, as the means of 
ultimately lessening the evil. Tentative processes 
of this kind are indeed indispensable steps. The 
grand experiment which Mr. Owen is making in 
America, even if it miscarry, is sure to throw light 
on the principles of human nature. Even the 
modern phrenology, should it prove utterly un- 
founded, will be of use. The prosecution of its 
inquiries will furnish a body of curious facts to the 
philosophical speculator ; and if ultimately ex- 
ploded, it will be to the philosophy of mind what 



140 ON THE PROGRESS 

alchymy was to chemistry. The same benefit 1 
own does not spring from a diversity of religious 
sects, because theology is considered as a matter 
not open to progressive improvement. Each sect 
has its fixed doctrines, and the object is not to dis- 
cover new truths, but to prevent any lapse from 
the principles prescribed. All inquiry with them 
is after new arguments to support old opinions. 
Yet here, although intellectual enterprise is dis- 
countenanced, contention and collision are brought 
into play ; the contention of rival sects and the col- 
lision of hostile opinions, forcing an examination of 
points which men would fain shield from inquiry, 
extorting concessions which can no longer be de- 
cently withheld ; and thus producing some of the 
good effects of that spirit of research and discovery 
which in less important sciences meets with such 
lavish encouragement. Although each sect may 
consider its own system as perfect, it has charity 
enough to assist in stripping other systems of their 
errors. 

B. Then you regard all these diversities of think- 
ing with great complacency ? 

N. They are really exhilarating in an enlarged 
view of the subject. At any given point of the 
progress, in any given state of knowledge or of ig- 
norance, it is much better that the ignorance and 
the error should be of a multiform than a uniform 
character. With my views, therefore, it is some- 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 141 

what ludicrous to see the anger, the vexation, the 
resentment, with which the generality of men re- 
gard those who differ from them in opinion. Such 
difference seems to be felt as a sort of personal 
offence, as an intolerable grievance which must be 
repressed. Wounded self-love looks around it, 
and can find nothing short of an act of parliament 
or a judicial sentence adequate to the task of 
avenging its wrongs. What is the simple light, 
however, in which philosophy and common sense 
would see these differences 1 They would see, first, 
that the subject in question required examination ; 
and, secondly, that it was likely to obtain the ex- 
amination which it required. The permanent ex- 
istence of any differences of opinion on any subject 
shows of itself, either that truth has not been fully 
attained by any of the dissentient parties, or that 
it has not been deduced in the most perspicuous 
method ; and, therefore, that there is still a neces- 
sity for animadversion and discussion. 

B. It is implied then in your view of the subject, 
that truth in these matters is attainable ; that there 
are certain determinate principles which may be 
discovered, and from which indisputable deductions 
might be made. 

N. Certainly. 1 see no reason to doubt it, and 
our friend A, who is so sanguine as to the progress 
of knowledge, must inevitably accord with me. 



142 ON THE PROGRESS 

A. True : but others may ask, how are such 
principles to be ascertained ? 

N. By a very slow but a tolerably sure process ; 
by generation after generation thinking, and speak- 
ing, and writing ; by proposing doubts and hypo- 
theses ; by criticism, by argument, by ridicule ; by 
all the play and contention of wit and folly, scep- 
ticism and pertinacity, sophistry and good sense. 
From these discordant elements, let loose on every 
possible subject of inquiry, we may ultimately ex- 
pect that enlightened and lasting unanimity which 
always attends the clear and simple exhibition of 
truth. 

B. But still you will allow, that there are some 
subjects which will probably ever remain dubious, 
difficult, and obscure ; and which as long as the 
world lasts must inevitably engender differences of 
opinion. 

N. I will not undertake to say that there is no 
subject which is doomed to be encumbered with 
eternal difficulties ; but this I will venture to affirm, 
that of whatever kind they are they will be accu- 
rately estimated and set in their proper light. The 
nature and the degree of the evidence on each 
point will be appreciated; the valid inferences, 
few or many, which the subject affords will be 
clearly shown : the absurd conclusions previously 
drawn from it will be exploded ; what it will and 
what it will not furnish will be rendered equally 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 143 

manifest ; and although the obstacles to a perfect 
comprehension of it may never be surmounted, there 
may be complete unanimity as to the character of 
the difficulties which it presents. No reason can 
be assigned why all this should not be accomplish- 
ed, and this is in fact for us, for human beings, the 
attainment of truth. 

B. Although I am not for my own part very san- 
guine as to any great progress in the human race, 
1 would not deny that there might be a considera- 
ble one amongst a few superior minds, who are to 
be found in every age, and who, forming an un- 
broken series, might carry on indefinitely the work 
of perfecting the sciences : but I much doubt the 
possibility of any corresponding or rather any com- 
mensurate progress in the multitude. It is one 
thing for the sciences to go on improving, and 
another for the mass of mankind to become pro- 
gressively partakers of such improvements. 

N. The progress will be slow ; nor will I under- 
take to maintain that it will be altogether commen- 
surate with the advances of those superior minds 
to whom you refer ; but nothing I think can pre- 
vent it. The same principles of human nature 
which render a science progressive among learned 
and studious men, will make knowledge progres- 
sive in every class. There is a certain measure of 
intelligence, or rather there is a certain set of no- 
tions, which every one inevitably imbibes, even 



144 ON THE PROGRESS 

the lowest of society ; a certain atmosphere of 
knowledge breathed in common by all ; and these 
notions depend upon the state of knowledge 
amongst those whose particular business it is to 
apply themselves to its cultivation. Now the cor- 
rectness or incorrectness of the notions thus imbib- 
ed, makes no difference in the ease with which 
they are acquired. The mind of a child receives 
with as little difficulty the enlightened opinions 
prevalent in the best English society as the ruder 
notions of the Hindoo or Hottentot. Unless, there- 
fore, the communication between the high and the 
low, the learned and the unlearned, is cut off, the 
latter cannot help partaking of the progress of their 
superiors. But it requires no evidence to show 
that the tendency of modern improvement, far from 
threatening to interrupt or embarrass this commu- 
nication, is decidedly to render it easy and com- 
plete. In fact, the sources of intelligence are open 
to all ranks indiscriminately. External obstacles 
to the general spread of sound knowledge are fast 
giving way. It is in the nature of the human mind 
itself, that we shall detect the most formidable im- 
pediment. We shall find it generally true, that 
discoveries are both slowly made, and slowly re- 
ceived and adopted. After a man has arrived at 
maturity, trained in certain fixed principles, pre- 
judices, and habits, it is impossible to change them 
essentially ; and, even if his opinions could be 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 145 

changed, his associations and feelings would prove 
rebels to his intellect. Hence, as I have before 
observed, it is the } T oung on whom any improve- 
ment is to be impressed ; and hence it is an age at 
least which must be granted for its perfect esta- 
blishment. Thus the wisdom of the pre-eminent 
few of one generation cannot become the common 
property, the familiar instrument of the crowd, till 
the next or a still later age ; and it appears to me 
that this process is one which comparatively little 
can be done to hasten, but which much may be 
done to perfect and extend. 

A. Here again we come to our old point of disa- 
greement. After all you have urged, I see no reason 
for departing from the opinion which I before main- 
tained, that the wider and wider diffusion of know- 
ledge amongst mankind must inevitably accelerate 
the progress of the race. The scope of your doc- 
trine, which appears to me to involve a striking 
inconsistency, is to show, that a greater number of 
mankind may be made to partake of the progress, 
but that the rate of the progress cannot be quicken- 
ed. You maintain in effect, that the general dis- 
semination of knowledge has little or no tendency 
to render mankind readier to part with their preju- 
dices ; that what each man learns in his youth he 
must retain with a pertinacity equal and unaltera- 
ble ; and that even the most enlightened individual 
of the present day, after he has reached a certain 

13 



146 ON THE PROGRESS 

age, is as callous to further improvement, as firmly 
indurated in his notions, as inaccessible to new 
ideas, as the rude barbarian of the American wild 
or the benighted chieftain of the middle ages : or if 
you do not go quite so far as this, if you would re- 
ject this application of the doctrine to the philoso- 
pher, you must at least maintain that the nature of 
the opinions which an ordinary man imbibes in that 
atmosphere of intelligence described by you as sur- 
rounding his infancy, can make no difference as to 
the tenacity with which they subsequently cling 
to him. In all this there appears to me to be an 
inconsistency for which I can account only by sup- 
posing that it has been concealed from your view by 
a strong prejudice as to the slow progress of the 
race, resulting from a disappointment of your san- 
guine visions on this subject in early life. What ! 
supposing a man's mind to be imbued in youth with 
liberal and enlightened sentiments, supposing him to 
gather without any direct effort on his own part, 
but from the actions and conversation of those 
around him, " that the human mind is necessarily 
fallible, that therefore it should never close itself 
against new light, that it should be constantly ac- 
cessible to fresh ideas, and ever on the watch to 
correct its errors ; that truth and not its own im- 
portance should be its sacred object in all inquiries 
and on all subjects, " — supposing a man, 1 say, to 
be imbued with these views, are we to conclude 



\ 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 147 

that notwithstanding their influence he would be as 
inveterate, as stubborn in his prejudices, as unsus- 
ceptible of melioration, as the most benighted of his 
species ; as the deluded victim, for example, who 
casts himself under the chariot wheels of an idol, 
the superstitious devotee who heroically lashes 
himself as he conceives into the favour of God, or 
the furious bigot who exterminates heresy by the 
rack and the scaffold ? 

When the matter is put in this light, I think you 
must allow, that in proportion to the real intelli- 
gence of men will be their openness to conviction, 
their disposition to receive new ideas, their readi- 
ness to review their cherished opinions ; and that a 
step of improvement may come in time to require 
something less than an age. 

B. But you have forgotten another part of our 
friend's remark, in which 1 am fully disposed to 
join him, the necessary slowness with which the 
human mind makes any improvements, any inven- 
tions or discoveries. 

A. To this part of his remarks an equally 
conclusive answer may be given. A great part of 
the slowness with which discoveries have suc- 
ceeded each other, may be ascribed to the tardy 
and limited diffusion of knowledge. N himself 
has made the remark, that one discovery must 
spring from another; that a man of inventive 
genius must rise from the height to which the la- 
bours of his predecessor have carried him. Now 



148 ON THE PROGRESS 

for a series of improvements and discoveries of this 
kind, I see no necessity for the intervention of 
long periods of time. If a man of original talent 
has the power of rising from the discoveries of his 
predecessor, he may do it, or begin to do, it from 
the moment they are known to him; and thus one 
man taking up the achievements of another, there 
may be a series of them even amongst contempo- 
raneous inquirers. The only requisite condition 
seems to be a ready and immediate promulgation 
of all that is accomplished. Formerly indeed what 
any one man discovered made its way slowly and 
laboriously to others engaged in the same pursuit. 
Perhaps he would pass from the scene before his 
labours were understood and appreciated, and in 
such a state of imperfect inter-communication a 
barren interval must undoubtedly elapse between 
almost every successive discovery in the same 
science. This lapse of time, however, was re- 
quired solely to propagate the intelligence amongst 
those who were likely to make use of it. At 
present, when the diffusion may be effected with 
the instantaneousness of lightning, when the world 
has become an immense whispering gallery, and 
the faintest accent of science is heard throughout 
every civilized country as soon as uttered, the 
requisite conditions are changed. Long intervals 
are no longer necessary, and the career of improve- 
ment may be indefinitely accelerated. Besides, 
not only are discoveries more rapidly communicat- 



OF KNOWLEDGE. 149 

ed to discovering minds, and the intervals of the 
series reduced almost to nothing, but with the gene- 
ral diffusion of knowledge more of these original 
intellects start forth, and thus another cause is 
brought into operation to swell the train and hasten 
the triumph of science. 

N. Your observations are ingenious and to a cer- 
tain extent perfectly just, nor do I know that they 
are at all inconsistent with my own views, except 
inasmuch as they lead to expectations of too san- 
guine a character. The process of improvement, 
and the circumstances which tend to accelerate 
what has been significantly and sometimes sneer- 
ingly termed the march of mind, you have ac- 
curately described. The only real difference 
between us is as to the rapidity of the progress ; 
and I still think, that if you were to examine the 
condition of society with a severe scrutiny, if you 
were to make yourself practically acquainted with 
the intellectual state of the mass, if you were to see, 
as I have seen, that the glare of modern civiliza- 
tion is owing to the superficial illumination which 
the intelligence of a comparatively few has cast 
over the many, — in thus perceiving how little had 
actually been done, you would be inclined to grant 
more time for the evolution of those great and 
glorious results, which we unite in hailing as the 
ultimate destiny of the human race. 

13* 



ESSAY 



UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION, 



EXPLAINING 



THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF ALL EVIDENCE AND 
EXPECTATION. 



ESSAY III. 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF ALL EVI- 
DENCE AND EXPECTATION. 



CHAPTER L 

ON THE ASSUMPTION IMPLIED IN ALL OUR EXPECTA- 
TIONS, THAT LIKE CAUSES WILL PRODUCE LIKE 
EFFECTS, OR OF THE FUTURE UNIFORMITY OF CAU- 
SATION. 

It is now generally admitted by philosophers, that 
there are a number of truths which necessarily 
arise in the mind in certain circumstances, and 
which are not the result of any logical deduction. 
Such are the existence of the external world and 
the identity of our own minds. The belief of these 
truths without any process of inference or argumen- 
tation, is a fact in the philosophy of mind which it 
is impossible to deny. It is justly remarked by Dr. 
Brown, that without some principles of immediate 
belief, we could have no belief whatever ; " for," 



154 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

he continues, " we believe one proposition because 
we discover its relation to some other proposition, 
which is itself perhaps related in like manner to 
some other proposition formerly admitted, but which 
carried back as far as it may be, through the longest 
series of ratiocination, must ultimately come to 
some primary proposition, which we admit from the 
evidence contained in itself, or to speak more accu- 
rately, which we believe from the mere impossibility 
of disbelieving it. All reasoning, then, the most scep- 
tical, be it remarked, as well as the most dogmatical, 
must proceed on some principles which are taken 
for granted, not because we infer them by logical 
deduction, for this very inference must then itself 
be founded on some other principle assumed with- 
out proof, but because the admission of these first 
principles is a necessary part of our intellectual 
constitution. "* " In ascending," says Buffier, "from 
one proof to another, propositions must at length be 
found that require none, otherwise life would be 
consumed in accumulating proofs, without proving 
any thing decisively."! 



* Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, by Dr. 
Thos. Brown, vol. i. p. 283. 

f First Truths, by Pere Burner, p. 5, (English Translation 
1780.) Aristotle has some passages to the same effect, which 
Dr. Beattie has adduced in his Essay on Truth, p. 40, fifth 
edition. 



IN THE FUTURE. 155 

Amongst the primary truths which are necessarily 
assumed or taken for granted in this manner, one 
of the most important is the uniformity of causation. 
In all our anticipations of events, in all cases of 
applying to the future our experience of the past, 
we unavoidably assume the fundamental principle 
that every cause will continue to produce the effect 
by which we have hitherto found it attended. A 
very short explanation will be sufficient to make 
this perfectly clear. 

When I throw a piece of paper into the fire, it 
is obvious that I do it under the expectation that 
the paper will be consumed. But why do I form 
this expectation ? Because I have found by expe- 
rience that fire has the property of consuming 
paper. This is a reason which would be perfectly 
satisfactory to every mind in actual life ; the meta- 
physician, however, although perfectly satisfied 
with the validity of the answer, still asks why, be- 
cause you have found in your past experience that 
fire has consumed paper, do you conclude that it 
will now exhibit the same destructive quality ? By 
what logical process do you infer that the same 
cause will continue to produce the same effect? 
Show me the steps of your reasoning. 

All the reply which can be given to this demand 
is what philosophers have already given. It is, that 
I assume or expect that fire will destroy paper as 
it has hitherto done, without any process of reason- 



156 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

ing, any deduction from any other principle, L na- 
turally and irresistibly take it for granted. You 
yourself continually act on a similar assumption ; for 
in putting your questions to me or any other per- 
son, you take for granted, you assume without think- 
ing of it, that your words will reach the ears of him 
for whom they were intended, and excite ideas in 
his mind, as you have found them to do in time 
past. In placing your foot on the ground, in taking 
up your pen, or in eating your breakfast, you still 
expect that the objects around you, the subjects of 
your operations, will retain their usual properties ; 
that the earth will not open a gulf beneath your 
feet, that the pen will not melt in your grasp, and 
that the food which has hitherto nourished you, 
will not turn to poison on your stomach. In a word, 
from the same causes you and every other human 
being necessarily anticipate the same effects. This 
uniformity is the essential principle of all expec- 
tation. 

This subject has been so ably treated by former 
writers, that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon it 
here. The short explanation which I have intro- 
duced is intended merely to serve as a basis for 
subsequent reasonings ; and to one who wishes to 
enter deeply into an important metaphysical ques- 
tion, it can by no means supersede the necessity of 
of a reference to the works of Hume, Reid, Stewart, 
and Brown. 



IN THE FUTURE. 157 

Mr. Hume was the first who distinctly showed 
that the uniformity of causation was not an inference 
from any other truth; that it was not a logical con- 
sequence of any principle or proposition previously 
admitted ; that in applying the past to the future 
there was a step taken by the mind which required 
explanation. The errors into which this great 
metaphysician fell in attempting to account for our 
expectation of similar effects from similar causes, 
(an expectation which he resolved into the sole 
influence of custom,) have been subsequently cor- 
rected by the three other eminent writers above 
mentioned, the last of whom has explained and il- 
lustrated the subject with so much acuteness and 
precision, that the doctrine may be regarded as 
perfectly established and defined, although still ca- 
pable of affording inferences and views, which even 
he with all his perspicacity failed to observe, or 
neglected to unfold in that regular order in which 
they may be exhibited. 

Before proceeding to point out some of these 
latent consequences, it may be useful to call the 
attention of the reader to a distinction which is apt 
to be overlooked, — the distinction between the phy- 
sical truth, that the same causes produce the same 
effects, and the mental fact, that we assume or take 
for granted this uniformity in the operation of 
causes. In speaking of the former I shall employ the 
phrases, uniformity of nature, uniformity of the laws 
14 



158 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION, &C. 

of nature, or uniformity of causation ; in speaking 
of the latter, or the mental fact, I shall term it an 
assumption of the uniformity of causation, or I shall 
speak of it as a principle or law of mind by which 
we take for granted that like causes have like effects. 
In regard to any primary principles unavoidably 
assumed by the constitution of our nature, or neces- 
sarily involved in the very process of thought, it is 
obvious that every proposition inconsistent with 
them, and every argument directed against them, 
must imply an absurdity. The disputant would in 
fact be contending against a principle which he 
himself was under the perpetual necessity of taking 
for granted. In the case of the truth which is the 
subject of the present essay, this would be pecu- 
liarly manifest. The acts of speaking and writing 
always presuppose an expectation that objects will 
retain their properties, or in other words, that the 
same causes will produce the same effects ; and 
consequently he who enunciates a proposition in- 
consistent with the uniformity of causation, is ex- 
pressly denying what in the denial itself he implicitly 
assumes. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION IS ASSUMED WITH RE- 
GARD TO THE PAST AS WELL AS TO THE FUTURE. 

From the representation in the preceding chap- 
ter it appears to be an unquestionable matter of 
fact, that we in all cases expect like effects from 
like causes ; or in other words, assume the future 
uniformity of causation. 

This expectation of the future, as it is the most 
remarkable circumstance connected with the pre- 
sent subject, has so much engaged the attention of 
philosophers, that they seem to have overlooked or 
only slightly noticed another fact equally obvious 
when stated, and pregnant if possible with more 
important consequences. Or, to express myself 
differently, they appear to have attended to only 
one half of the truth. They have clearly discerned 
in what manner we unavoidably expect the future 
to resemble the past; how we always assume that 
the same causes will continue to produce the same 
effects ; but they have bestowed little regard on 
the equally clear fact, that in all our reasonings 



160 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

about the past we as necessarily assume that like 
causes always have produced like effects. 

This assumption of the past uniformity of causa- 
tion will be apparent on the slightest reflection. 
To have recourse again to our instance of throw- 
ing paper into the fire : it is obvious that I not only 
expect the paper to be burnt, but I assume that fire 
has always possessed the property of consuming 
that substance. As a proof that this assumption is 
involved in my thoughts, it is only necessary to 
trace the process of my mind in rejecting a narra- 
tion at variance with my own experience. Should 
any one assert, that at a former period of his life 
he had thrown paper into the fire, suffered it to re- 
main for five minutes in the flames, and then taken 
it out unscorched and unconsumed, I should in- 
stantly regard the relation as false, and should think 
it a sufficient refutation to throw a piece of paper 
into the fire, and thus prove to the narrator the im- 
possibility of what he had asserted. But why could 
not paper have remained in the flames for five mi- 
nutes unconsumed ? Because Uie experiment before 
us proves that fire has the property of destroying it. 
Should any one push his inquiries further, and ask 
why, because you find that fire has at present this 
property, do you infer that it has always possessed 
it ? I can only reply, that it is an assumption which 
I necessarily make. I cannot even think of the 
past without taking for granted that the same causes 



IN THE PAST. 161 

have produced the same effects in every age and 
every country. 

It has been observed by Mr. Stewart, in speak- 
ing of that law of belief {to use his own words) 
which leads us to expect the continuance in future 
of the established order of physical phenomena, 
that " a very striking illustration of this presents it- 
self in the computations of the astronomer; on the 
faith of which he predicts, with the most perfect 
assurance, many centuries before they happen, the 
appearances which the heavenly bodies are to ex- 
hibit."* 

Now it is certainly a no less striking illustration 
of our belief in the past uniformity of causation 
which is presented to us by modern astronomical 
computations of the celestial phenomena of former 
ages. The astronomer, in the absence of all testi- 
mony on the subject, without the slightest direct 
evidence of any single event, unhesitatingly pro- 
ceeds in his calculations on the established order 
of the solar system, and particularizes the eclipses 
which have taken place thousands of years before 
the date of authentic history, with quite as much 
confidence as he predicts the appearances of the 
heavenly bodies in ages yet to come. That this 
uniformity of causation is assumed and not inferred 
with regard to the past, just as it is with regard to 

* Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, chap. ii. 
sect. 4, of vol. ii. 

14* 



162 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

the future, is abundantly manifest. The same il- 
lustration may be used in both cases. Take for 
instance the usual method of showing, that the fu- 
ture uniformity of the laws of nature is not a legiti- 
mate inference from our antecedent observations. 
In the words of Dr. Beattie : u The sea has ebbed 
and flowed twice every day in time past, therefore 
the sea will continue to ebb and flow twice every 
day in time to come, is by no means a logical de- 
duction of a conclusion from premises. "* With 
equal force may the reasoning, " The sea now ebbs 
and flows twice every day, therefore the sea has 
always ebbed and flowed twice a day in times 
past," also be denied to be a legitimate inference. 

Or let us take the words of Dr. Brown : " A 
stone tends to the earth — a stone will always tend 
to the earth, are not the same propositions ; nor can 
the first be said to involve the second. "t Precisely 
the same remark is applicable to the two proposi- 
tions, "a stone tends to the earth — a stone has 
always tended to the earth." These are equally 
remote from identity and from being reciprocally 
involved. 

The truth is, that the expectation we instinctively 
entertain of the future uniformity, and the convic- 
tion as instinctively present in our own minds of 

* Essay on Truth, second edition, p. 126. 
t Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 
122. 



IN THE PAST. 163 

the past uniformity of the laws of nature, may be 
resolved into one general principle of belief, which 
is identified with all our thoughts and actions, that 
the same antecedents have been, are, and will be 
followed by the same consequences. 

In observing that philosophers in general have 
overlooked the truth ; that in reasoning on events 
which have taken place, we necessarily assume the 
past uniformity of causation, as in calculating on 
those which are to take place, we necessarily as- 
sume the future uniformity of causation, it is not 
intended to maintain that the fact has not been 
incidentally noticed or even expressly asserted. As 
far as I have examined, however, their notice of it 
has been casual, and they appear in no instance to 
have been aware of the consequences to which it 
ultimately leads. The only exception to any part 
of this remark is Dr. Thomas Brown. Hume has 
several passages in which the fact is recognised. 
Dr. Reid less explicitly asserts it.* Dugald Stewart 
perhaps less explicitly than either. All of them, 
however, seem too entirely occupied with the ex- 

* There is one passage, however, in Dr. Reid's Essays on the 
Intellectual Powers, which states it with clearness and precision : 
44 What conclusions," he asks, u does the philosopher draw from 
the facts he has collected ? They are, that like events have 
happened in former times in like circumstances, and will happen 
in time to come." Essay vii. chap. iii. The only fault in this 
passage is, that what are in truth unavoidable assumptions are 
represented as conclusions drawn from facts. 



164 UNIFORMITY OP CAUSATION 

pectation regarding the future, to feel the import- 
ance of the retrospective application of the same 
identical principle. When the latter writer speaks 
of this elemental law of thought, as he terms it, it 
is under the character of "an expectation of the 
continued uniformity of the laws of nature ;" or, " a 
principle of the mind by which we are led to apply 
to future events the results of our past experience."* 
In the same style Dr. Reid speaks of it as u an 
original principle, by which we believe and expect 
the continuance of the course of nature, and the 
continuance of those connections which we have 
observed in time past."t In another place he de- 
signates it as "an instinctive prescience of the 
operations of nature," " a prescience that things 
which have been found conjoined in time past, will 
be found conjoined in time to come.^J 

Hume has been less engrossed than either of the 
two philosophers last mentioned with the prospec- 
tive character of this principle. In the beginning 
of his sceptical doubts, several of his positions 
imply, that this assumption of the uniformity of the 
laws of nature is involved in all our reasonings 
concerning the past : his assertion, for instance, 
" that it is by means of the relation of cause and 

* Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. 
chap. ii. sect. 4. 
t Inquiry into the Human Mind, chap. vi. sect. 24. 
t Ibid. 



IN THE PAST. 165 

effect alone, that we can go beyond the evidence of 
our memory and senses." The same truth is also 
implied in a passage, where he maintains that past 
experience can be allowed to give direct and certain 
information of those precise objects only, and that 
precise period of time which falls under its cogni- 
sance. In another place he asks why experience 
should be extended to future times and other ofc- 
jects y but if these passages show that he had a 
glimpse of the truth, they show also that it was 
partial and fugitive. Like the other writers, he 
slides into the consideration almost exclusively of 
the application of the past to the future. " All our 
experimental conclusions proceed upon the suppo- 
sition that the future will be conformable to the 
past." And another passage plainly indicates that 
this view of the subject almost wholly engaged his 
attention. " Let the course of things," says he, u be 
allowed hitherto ever so regular, that alone, without 
some new argument or inference, proves not that 
for the future it will continue so." 

Dr. Thomas Brown, who has treated this sub- 
ject with more precision and accuracy than any 
other writer, seems to have been fully aware of 
the fact, that we assume the uniform operation of 
causes in our speculations on the past as well as 
on the future. " The change," he says, u which 
we know in the actual circumstances observed, we 
believe to have taken place as often as the circurn- 



16G UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

stances before were similar ; and we believe also, 
that it will continue to take place as often as future 
circumstances shall in this respect have an exact 
resemblance to the present." And again, "the 
utmost perfection of our mere senses could show 
us only what is, at the moment of perception, not 
what has been, nor what will be ; and there is no- 
thing in any qualities of bodies perceived by us, 
which, without experience, could enable us to pre- 
dict the changes that are to occur in them. The 
foundation of all inquiry with respect to pheno- 
mena as successive, is that most important law or 
original tendency of our nature, in consequence of 
which, we not merely perceive the changes ex- 
hibited to us at one particular moment, but, from 
this perception, are led irresistibly to believe, that 
similar changes have constantly taken place in all 
similar circumstances, and will constantly take 
place as often as the future circumstances shall 
be exactly similar to the present.*" 

Although this eminent philosopher has thus most 
clearly expressed the truth which I am now en- 
deavouring to illustrate, he appears not to have 
methodically considered it in its most important 
applications, and to have been with the rest dispro- 
portionately engrossed with what he terms " the 
conversion of the past into the future." It is one 

* Lectures on the Philosophy of the Mind, vol. i. p. 184. 



IN THE PAST. 167 

thing to have an incidental perception of a truth, 
or to touch it causally in the circuit of our specula- 
tions, and another to see it in a clear light, to make 
it the direct object of our attention, to ascertain 
its full value, and to pursue it into all its conse- 
quences. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION CANNOT BE ESTA- 
BLISHED BY EXPERIENCE AND TESTIMONY. 

To the representation of the subject in the. pre- 
ceding chapter, it will probably be urged as an ob- 
jection, that we by no means assume that causes 
and effects have always been uniform in their 
sequence; but on the contrary are indebted for 
the knowledge of this fact to experience and to 
history. How should we know, it may be said, 
that human beings formerly lived on this earth ; 
that fire has always consumed wood, corn afforded 
nutriment, and water quenched thirst ; how should 
we know all these things but from the voice of his- 
tory, the testimony of our fellow-men ? From 
what other source could we derive the knowledge, 
that there has been a regular succession of day and 
night, of summer and winter, that the sun has dis- 
dispensed light and heat for thousands of years, 
that the moon for an equal period has passed 
through her incessant circle of changes, and that 
over the heads of countless generations the stars 
have ceaselessly glittered in the sky, making night 



UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION, &C 169 

beautiful, and exciting the awe and admiration of 
mankind? 

In considering this objection, it is necessary to 
call to mind in the first place the distinction which 
we are constantly apt to overlook between the 
general principle, that like causes have like effects, 
and particular instances of causation. The prin- 
ciple itself must be assumed before we can draw 
any inference from the present to the past or to the 
future; but what particular effects result from par- 
ticular causes must be collected from observation. 
After we have found that a certain cause produces 
a certain effect, we unconsciously take for granted, 
that whenever that particular cause has been in 
operation that particular effect has followed. The 
sequence itself is gathered from observation or ex- 
perience, but the uniformity of the sequence is ir- 
resistibly and unavoidably assumed. 

We know, for example, that human beings 
formerly lived on this earth as at present from the 
traces which they have left ; that is, from the 
effects which they produced while in existence, or 
the remains of their bodies. What effects human 
beings produce we learn from experience; but un- 
less we take for granted that causes and effects 
have a uniform connection, we cannot infer from 
any existing appearances what agents were con- 
cerned in their production ; discard this principle, 
and the traces which we now regard as left by 
15 



170 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

men similar to ourselves may have been occasioned 
in a thousand modes which it is impossible to 
imagine. 

The two sources which supply us with informa- 
tion regarding past events, and to which the ob- 
jection under notice attributes our knowledge of the 
uniformity of causation, are personal experience 
and testimony ; and in order to ascertain how far 
these could enable us to arrive at this principle, it 
will be necessary to examine them separately. 

All that a man's personal experience reaches to 
manifestly is, that he has observed certain succes- 
sions in the phenomena of the world, material and 
mental. He may have observed, for example, that 
lead has invariably sunk in w r ater. The instances 
of this which he has actually witnessed may have 
been a hundred ; and the simple amount of his ex- 
perience consequently is, that lead has sunk in 
water a hundred times. As far as these instances 
go, he may be said to have gathered the uniformity 
of causation from personal experience : but his ex- 
perience can tell him no more than that this uni- 
formity has taken place in a hundred trials: and 
the moment he extends the same uniformity to 
other instances, he leaves the confined circle of per- 
sonal observation, and proceeds on the irresistible 
assumption of which we have so often spoken. 

It may be remarked too, that his conviction that 
lead will sink and has always sunk in water is as 



NOT ESTABLISHED BY EXPERIENCE. 171 

thorough after one trial as after a hundred. If we 
at any time repeat an experiment, it is not because 
we doubt whether the same causes always produce 
the same effects, but it is lest any of the causes 
or effects should have escaped our observation. 

In the next place, we have to examine whether 
this uniformity of causation can be gathered from 
testimony. 

And first we may remark, that the testimony of 
another can vouch only for what he himself has 
witnessed. If my neighbour has observed lead to 
sink in water a hundred times, and I have done 
the same, our conjoint experience amounts only to 
this, that lead has sunk in water two hundred 
times, while the conviction we have or the assump- 
tion we make is universally comprehensive. 

In the second place it is important to remark, as 
will be more fully shown hereafter, that our reli- 
ance upon testimony itself proceeds on the assump- 
tion of that very uniformity of causation, which 
testimony by the objection under notice is supposed 
to prove. When I am told by my neighbours that 
they have observed the same particular succession 
of events which I myself have witnessed, 1 believe 
them, because I have found them individually men 
of veracity, or because I have found men in gene- 
ral adhere to truth in circumstances similar to those 
in which their testimony is given. What is the 
ground of my reliance in this case ? Not simple ex- 



172 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION, &C. 

perience, because that could tell me only that in a 
certain number of instances men had acted in a 
certain manner ; it could not inform me that they 
still continue to act in the same manner, and yet I 
believe they do in the instance in question, on the 
inevitable assumption of the uniformity of causation. 
Thus testimony cannot prove this uniformity, be- 
cause we must take the principle itself for granted 
in bringing testimony to prove it. 

From these considerations it clearly appears, that 
our own personal experience can prove the unifor- 
mity of causation only in those individual instances 
where we have witnessed it ; that the testimony of 
others in like manner can prove this uniformity only 
in the number of cases which have fallen under 
their observation ; and that testimony itself, or rather 
our belief in it, involves the assumption of that uni- 
formity which some people would adduce it to 
prove. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION IS ASSUMED IN ALL 
OUR CONCLUSIONS RESPECTING MENTAL AS WELL AS 
PHYSICAL PHENOMENA. 

The preceding chapters have sufficiently es- 
tablished and illustrated the fact, that in all our 
thoughts and reasonings concerning events, we un- 
avoidably proceed on the assumption that similar 
effects have always arisen and will always arise 
from similar causes. 

So far I have restricted my observations almost 
exclusively to physical changes, because 1 wished 
to keep out of view the consideration of mental 
events, till the precise nature of that law of thought 
which forms the subject of the present essay had 
been elucidated. But we should have a very im- 
perfect view of the subject if we rested here. It is 
evident that we must proceed on this or some simi- 
lar principle in our moral reasonings ; and I shall 
endeavour to show, that the same assumption of 
the uniformity of causes and effects is involved in 
all our conclusions respecting moral and intellectual 
phenomena. 

15* 



174 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

It has been already remarked, that when we 
throw a piece of paper into the fire, we do it under 
the expectation that the paper will be consumed. 
In like manner, when I write a letter to a friend, I 
do it under the impression that his intellectual quali- 
ties will continue the same as I have hitherto found 
them; and that the associations established in his 
mind between certain words and certain ideas will 
be the same as heretofore. I take for granted that 
the black marks in my letter will continue to intro- 
duce into his mind the thoughts which 1 design to 
convey, just as I take for granted that lead will sink 
in water, or snow melt in the sun : and in ad- 
dressing my arguments to his understanding, I pro- 
ceed on the assumption of its retaining all its usual 
powers. This holds in respect not only to indivi- 
duals, but to mankind at large. The predictions of 
the astronomer, to which I have already alluded, 
proceed on the assumption, not only that the hea- 
venly bodies will continue to be governed by the 
same laws, but that mankind in after ages will re- 
tain the same faculties as they now possess. 

With regard to the operations of the understand- 
ing the fact will be at once admitted. If there is 
any difficulty in the matter, it must attach to the 
question whether the same uniformity of causation 
is assumed in the case of affections, passions, and 
volitions. But we shall discern no difference in 
this respect amongst all these classes of mental 



IN MENTAL EVENTS. 175 

phenomena. With regard to all we unavoidably 
proceed on the same assumption. When I an- 
nounce to my friend the accomplishment of some 
wish long cherished in his heart, I confidently anti- 
cipate the joy which my communication will excite; 
exactly on the same principle which leads me to 
expect that the stone which I throw into the air 
will fall to the ground. When 1 enter a bookseller's 
shop to purchase a book, I as fully calculate on his 
parting with the volume for the customary price, as 
I presume on the combustion of paper when thrown 
into the fire. If I attempt to persuade a fellow 
creature to refrain from a meditated crime, my ad- 
vice proceeds on the same assumption, that similar 
moral effects will follow the moral causes with 
which they have been hitherto found conjoined. I 
point out perhaps the consequences of the action 
in rousing the indignation of mankind, and leading 
them to inflict punishment on the perpetrator ; or 
I endeavour to show the remorse by which it will 
be pursued in his own breast. And if he were to 
ask me how I could tell that these effects would 
follow, 1 should answer, that they had been found 
to do so in similar cases. Should he proceed still 
farther in his inquiries, should he request to know 
how I could tell that the same effects would again 
attend the same causes, I could merely answer, that 
the assumption of this uniformity of sequence was a 
necessary condition of thought which neither he 



176 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

nor myself could avoid ; and that his own questions 
afforded an instance of it, since they proceeded up- 
on the expectation, not only that his words would 
reach my ears as in times past, but that certain 
ideas and volitions would be excited in my mind as 
heretofore, the result of which would be an answer 
to his inquiries. 

It may be objected, however, that our confidence 
in these cases is not so great as it is in regard to 
physical events ; that there is always more or less 
of uncertainty in our anticipations ; that my cor- 
respondent may not be able to read my letter, since 
he may have lost his memory ; that my other friend 
may have changed his views, and may feel no joy 
at the accomplishment of his wishes ; that the book- 
seller may refuse to part w T ith his volumes; and 
that in the last hypothetical case adduced, mankind 
may no longer feel incensed at those actions which 
formerly roused their indignation. 

The reply to this objection is not difficult. In 
all these cases there is no want of faith in the uni- 
formity of causation : our uncertainty by no means 
relates to the principle itself, but to the point whe- 
ther all the same causes, and no other, are in ope- 
ration : and if the event at any time turn out con- 
trary to our expectations, we feel well assured of 
the presence of some extraordinary cause — an as- 
surance evidently proceeding on the assumption, 
that if the causes had been the same the effects 



IN MENTAL EVENTS. 177 

must also have been similar. Thus if my corres- 
pondent is unable to read my letter, if he no longer 
connects any meaning with the written words, 1 
am convinced that some extraordinary calamity 
has befallen him. If the bookseller refuse to sell 
me his volumes, I feel no hesitation in ascribing his 
conduct to some particular motive not usually at 
work in his mind : all proving, not that there is a 
want of uniformity in the sequence of causes and 
effects, but that there is a different assemblage of 
causes ; that some essential circumstance has been 
left out, or some unusual one has crept into the ac- 
customed combination. 

As this part of the subject leads to some interest- 
ing conclusions, I shall endeavour to show in the 
next chapter, that whatever certainty or uncertain- 
ty we feel in regard to moral events, particularly 
voluntary actions, is precisely the same as that 
which we entertain in the case of physical changes, 
and that in this respect the two classes of pheno- 
mena are exactly on an equality. 

After so amply proving that we necessarily as- 
sume the uniformity of causation in moral events 
with reference to the future, it will scarcely be 
needful to show that we equally assume it with re- 
gard to the past. All that I have said in a former 
chapter on the retrospective application of this 
principle, will be found applicable mutatis mutan- 
dis to the subject before us. The powers and pas- 



178 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION, &C. 

sions which we now discern in the human mind, we 
assume to have always existed, and to have operated 
in a similar manner; and that we do not derive 
our conviction of this uniformity from testimony is 
still more apparent in the present case than the 
other, since testimony itself is a moral event, a 
voluntary action, and therefore cannot prove that 
itself is invariably connected with certain causes. 



CHAPTER V. 



OUR CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY IN RELATION TO 
MORAL ARE OF THE SAME NATURE AS IN RELATION 
TO PHYSICAL EVENTS. 

It is proposed to show in the present chapter, that 
whatever certain or uncertainty we feel with regard 
to voluntary actions, is precisely of the same charac- 
ter, and arises from the same causes as that which 
we feel with regard to physical changes : and that 
in many cases our certainty is not less in respect to 
the former than to the latter. 

For the sake of perspicuity and comparison we 
may divide physical events into several classes, and 
examine our feelings of this nature in regard to 
each. 

1. There are some events observed to be so in- 
variably connected with others, that when one takes 
place we feel perfectly sure that the other will fol- 
low. Thus it is impossible to doubt that when a 
piece of lead is thrown into water it will sink ; that 
when flame is applied to gunpowder an explosion 
will ensue ; that when an elastic ball is thrown 
upon a hard floor it will rebound ; and that when 



180 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY 

we press the keys of a harpsichord we shall pro- 
duce certain musical sounds. 

2. The preceding events depend on something 
antecedent, which may or may not take place. 
The sinking of a piece of lead depends on its be- 
ing placed in the water, and all that we can pre- 
dict is, that if such an event come to pass, such a 
result will follow ; or that in given circumstances 
a certain event will happen. But there is another 
class of events placed beyond accident or control, 
which may be the objects of absolute prediction, 
which depend on no previous supposition, and 
which we calculate upon with perfect assurance ; 
such as the eclipses of the sun and moon, and the 
motions of the heavenly bodies in general. 

3. There is another and very large class of phe- 
nomena which are placed beyond the reach of 
human foresight, which to us are uncertain : the 
state, for instance, of the wind and weather, the 
appearance of meteors, the occurrence of earth- 
quakes, and a thousand others which will rise to the 
recollection of every one. 

Analogous in point of uncertainty to these are 
many events connected with those concerning which 
we feel completely certain : such as the direction in 
which a ball thrown upon a hard floor may rebound, 
or the place where it may ultimately rest ; the par- 
ticular effects of an explosion of gunpowder, and 
the like. An example will explain my meaning. If 



RESPECTING MORAL EVENTS. 181 

I throw an elastic ball against a stone floor, 1 can 
predict that it will rebound, but not the precise 
course which it will describe, nor in what part of 
the floor its motion will finally cease, nor what time 
will elapse in the process. To me, therefore, the 
one event, the rebounding of the ball is certain ; the 
other event, the direction it will pursue, is uncer- 
tain. 

4. Perhaps as a fourth class I may instance events 
which we can predict in the gross, but not in the 
detail ; such as the regular return of the seasons. 

Now what is the real difference amongst these 
four classes of events ? What is it that enables us 
to predict some with perfect certainty, while we 
can scarcely form a conjecture as to others ? 

In the first place, it is obvious that the uncer- 
tainty entertained with regard to the latter arises 
from no mistrust of the uniformity of causation. To 
refer to our third class of physical events, we be- 
lieve that the direction of a ball rebounding from 
the floor is as necessary a consequence of certain 
causes as the rebound itself; and we make no doubt 
that if we could throw the ball with equal force 
from the same point to the same place on the floor, 
and secure the similarity of all the other influential 
circumstances, we should obtain the same result. 
This is exemplified in circumstances a little varied 
by the expert billiard player. What in the hands 
of a novice is uncertainty and confusion, becomes 

16 



182 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY 

in his all the certainly of foreknowledge. The 
precise course of the ball, and its ultimate resting 
place, are all foreseen by the prophetic eye of skill. 
Since our uncertainty therefore arises not from 
any irregularity in the sequence of causes and 
effects, it can arise only from our ignorance of the 
whole of the causes in operation. These two ex- 
haust the possible suppositions on the subject. To 
know a cause as such is to foresee the effect which 
it will produce ; and if we know all the causes con- 
cerned in a phenomenon, we can foretell all the 
effects. That some events present steadier objects 
of prediction than others, merely attests that w 7 ith 
regard to the former we have attained superior 
knowledge. We have a striking exemplification of 
this in the instance of astronomy. Before that 
science was at all cultivated, the eclipses of the sun 
and moon, and the positions of the heavenly bodies, 
were matters of uncertainty ; they appeared lawless 
and irregular phenomena. But if with regard to 
events, which mankind at one time looked upon as 
unfixed and anomalous, they now feel undoubting 
confidence, this has obviously proceeded from no 
change in the character of the events, but from a 
revolution in human knowledge. We hence obtain 
a full confirmation of the important conclusion, 
which, simple as it may appear to be, is perpetually 
overlooked, that uncertainty is a state or feeling of 
the mind, not an attribute of events. When we 



RESPECTING MORAL EVENTS. 183 

assert that any event is uncertain, we merely de- 
clare the state of our minds ; it is our knowledge, 
and not the event, which possesses the character of 
uncertainty. 

Having thus ascertained what is the real meaning 
of uncertainty as applied to physical events, 1 pro- 
ceed to show that whatever uncertainty we feel 
with regard to voluntary actions is precisely of the 
same character. 

For this purpose let us consider voluntary actions 
under different classes, corresponding to those un- 
der which we arranged physical phenomena. 

1. There are a great number of voluntary actions 
which we observe to follow certain causes with so 
much regularity, that we feel a perfect confidence 
in the result whenever those causes are in opera- 
tion. With as little doubt as we expect lead to 
sink in water or gunpowder in contact with flame 
to explode, we calculate upon a thousand actions 
depending on the volitions of the human mind ; we 
expect that when food is set before a hungry man 
he will eat, that when a man's house is on fire he 
will attempt to escape, that when we direct our 
servants to do certain offices they will perform 
them, and that by the offer of certain sums of mo- 
ney we can procure the various commodities which 
are daily exposed to sale. If any one alleges that 
these consequences are by no means certain, be- 
cause for example it is possible the hungry man 



184 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY 

may refuse food, I reply, that this refusal must arise 
from some motive not necessarily connected with 
his state of hunger. It is possible in the same way 
that lead may not sink in water, (a lump of cork 
for instance may buoy it up,) but this must be oc- 
casioned by some adventitious circumstance. 

In this first class, therefore, physical events and 
voluntary actions appear to engender in the mind 
the same kind of certainty and to be exactly cor- 
respondent. 

2. We may also find amongst voluntary actions, 
some which are capable of absolute prediction, — 
depending on no previous supposition. We can 
foretell, for instance, that the tradesmen in an Eng- 
lish town will shut up their shops on a Sunday, that 
a number of travellers during the present year will 
leave England for foreign countries, that speeches 
will be made in parliament, and that criminals will 
be condemned by the judges. 

All these events are evidently voluntary actions 
or their results, and may be predicted with as much 
confidence as the rising of the sun or an eclipse of 
the moon. The circumstance of the motions of 
the heavenly bodies enabling us to measure time, 
makes no difference as to the point of view in 
which we are considering them. 

3. To the third class of physical events we shall 
find abundance of corresponding moral phenomena. 
I may cite indeed the chief part of the actions 



RESPECTING MORAL EVENTS. 185 

of mankind at large. As in the material universe 
there are numberless circumstances constantly 
taking place, of which some may be predicted with 
tolerable exactness and others baffle all conjecture, 
so in the affairs of men we have all degrees of un- 
certainty : some actions we may confidently antici- 
pate, while concerning others we are altogether in 
perplexity. It perhaps will not be contested with 
regard to this third class, that physical and moral 
phenomena closely correspond. 

4. With regard to the fourth class, which is per- 
haps a superfluous division, and might be resolved 
by a slight analysis into one or other of the preced- 
ing classes, it is obvious that there is the same mix- 
ture of certainty and uncertainty in the return of 
the seasons, and in men's actions consequent on 
that return. With as much confidence as we an- 
ticipate the coming of spring, we may look for a 
voluntary application of the labour necessary for 
the cultivation of the soil at that season, although 
we are unable to predict the exact time and the 
particular occurrences in either case. There are 
other events among mankind analogous to these, in 
respect to uniformity in the aggregate and variety 
in the details. Thus mankind regularly retire to 
rest every evening and rise every morning, regu- 
larly eat and drink, and pursue their several occu- 
pations. 

In regard to these four classes then, as in regard 
16* 



186 CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY 

to the classes of physical events, we feel certainty 
and uncertainty ; certainty in those cases where 
our knowledge is complete, and uncertainty in 
those cases where we are not acquainted with all 
the influential circumstances. This uncertainty is 
evidently the feeling of the mind speculating upon 
the future, nor can we apply the term uncertain to 
any conceivable event, physical or mental, with 
any other meaning. 

It is indeed singular enough that any events 
whatever should ever have been considered as in 
themselves possessing the character of uncertainty. 
If any meaning can be attached to this term so 
used, it must imply that the same causes do not 
always produce the same effects ; for if the same 
causes always produce the same effects, uncertain- 
ty can be nothing but a feeling in the mind of him 
who speculates concerning them. 

It appears to be the numerous instances of this 
feeling with regard to voluntary actions, which 
have led to the notion that there must be some 
greater uncertainty or instability in them than in 
material events. But if there is this quality in the 
actions themselves, it must arise from the same 
causes producing one kind of effect at one time 
and another kind of effect at another time. It has 
been shown, how r ever, that we do necessarily 
and unavoidably assume that the same causes 
always produce the same effects ; and as this as- 



RESPECTING MORAL EVENTS. 187 

sumption is a necessary law or condition of thought, 
the contrary must be absurd. This consideration 
alone is sufficient to determine the vague question 
which has been agitated respecting the so called 
freedom of the will, a question which has been spun 
out into such a length of controversy, chiefly from 
the simple circumstance of many of the disputants 
having formed no clear conception of the poir>t in 
dispute. If in our anticipations of voluntary actions 
we assume the uniform attendance of certain 
effects on certain causes, either there must be this 
uniformity, or by the constitution of our nature we 
assume what is false, — an alternative which ap- 
pears to settle the question. 

This subject however is too important to be dis- 
missed with a single remark, and it will be resumed 
in a subsequent chapter. 



CHAPTER. VI. 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TRUTH UNFOLDED IN THE 
LAST CHAPTER. 

We have seen in the last chapter, that the cir- 
cumstance of some events presenting steadier 
objects of prediction than others, does not arise 
from any greater uniformity of causation in the 
former; and that the uncertainty of our anticipa- 
tions with regard to both moral and physical events 
is of the same character and has the same source : 
it is simply a feeling of the mind, and arises solely 
from the imperfection of our knowledge. 

It was also attempted to show, that men's actions 
and speculations as constantly proceed upon the ex- 
pectation that certain voluntary acts will result 
from certain motives, as that physical substances 
will produce their usual effects. It is surprising 
indeed that this connection between motives and 
actions should have ever been theoretically ques- 
tioned, when every human being every day of his 
existence is practically depending upon its truth ; 
when men are perpetually staking pleasure, and 



ILLUSTRATIONS OF PRECEDING CHAPTER. 189 

fortune, and reputation, and even life itself, on the 
very principle that they speculatively reject. It is 
in truth intermingled in all our schemes, projects, 
and achievements. In the address of the orator, 
in the treatise of the author, in the enactments of 
the legislator, in the manoeuvres of the warrior, in 
the edicts of the monarch, it is equally implied. 
Examine any one of these. Take for example the 
operations of a campaign. A general in the exer- 
cise of his authority over the army which he com- 
mands, cannot move a step without taking for 
granted that the minds of his soldiers will be de- 
termined by the motives presented to them. When 
he directs his aid-de-camp to bear a message to an 
officer in another part of the field, he calculates 
upon his obedience with as little mistrust as he 
reckons upon the stability of the ground on which 
he stands, or on the magnifying power of the tele- 
scope in his hand. When he orders his soldiers to 
wheel, to deploy, to form a square, to fire a battery, 
is he less confident of the result than he is when he 
performs some physical operation — when he pulls 
a trigger, or seals a despatch ? It is obvious that 
throughout all his operations, in marches and en- 
campments, and sieges and battles, he calculates as 
fully on the volitions of his men as on the strength 
of his fortifications or the powers of his batteries. 

It were easy to multiply illustrations. When a 
man establishes a manufactory, he reckons with 



190 ILLUSTRATIONS OF 

perfect assurance on the power of the motives 
which he presents to the minds of his workmen. 
There is a periodical result arising from their voli- 
tions in which he unhesitatingly confides, just as he 
confides in the power of the steam engine which 
shares their labours. 

In commercial transactions of all sorts there is the 
same reliance. Jn the simple circumstance of a 
merchant's draft on his banker, we have it striking- 
ly exemplified. We can scarcely conceive an 
instance of more perfect reliance on the determina- 
tion of the will by the motives presented to it, than 
this common occurrence. The merchant dismisses 
his draft into the commercial world without the 
least doubt, that however circuitous the course, it 
w T ill at last find some individual to present it for 
payment, and that his banker will finally pay it. 
Here we have in fact a series of volitions, the re- 
sult of which is looked for with unhesitating confi- 
dence, with a confidence quite equal and similar to 
that with which the material of the draft is expected 
to retain the hand-writing upon it. 

The principal illustration, however, w 7 hich I have 
to adduce on this subject is the science of political 
economy, especially as it will afford at the same 
time an opportunity of exhibiting the real basis of 
this science, which has not perhaps been fully un- 
derstood, even by some of those who have been suc- 
cessful in the discovery and elucidation of its truths. 



THE PRECEDING CHAPTER. 191 

The principle which is at the bottom of all the 
reasonings of potitical economy, is in fact the uni- 
formity with which visible or assignable circum- 
stances operate on the human will. It is for example 
laid down in books on this subject, that if a com- 
munity can purchase any commodity on lower terms 
.at one market than another, they will resort to the 
cheaper market; and on this proposition an econo- 
mist builds a large superstructure of argument, with- 
out the least doubt as to the foundation on which 
it rests, and confidently predicts what will be the 
conduct of this or that nation to whom such a 
choice of markets is offered. The result thus pre- 
dicted is made up of the actions of individuals, all 
of whose minds are determined by this assignable 
circumstance. 

Another principle of political economy is, that 
where competition is left open, there is a certain 
equality takes place in the profits of the various 
branches of commerce. If any one branch becomes 
much more lucrative than the rest, a flow of capi- 
tal to that department soon restores the equilibrium. 
This principle is explained by Adam Smith, in the 
case of the builder, as follows : 

" The building rent," says he, " is the interest or 
profit of the capital expended in building the house. 
In order to put the trade of a builder upon a level 
with other trades, it is necessary that this rent 
should be sufficient, first, to pay him the same in- 



192 ILLUSTRATION OF 

terest which he would have got for his capital if he 
had lent it on good security ; and, secondly, to keep 
the house in constant repair, or what comes to the 
same thing, to replace within a certain term of 
years the capital which had been employed in build- 
ing it. The building rent, or the ordinary profit of 
building, is therefore everywhere regulated by the 
ordinary interest of money. Where the market 
rate of interest is four per cent., the rent of a house, 
which over and above paying the ground rent, af- 
fords six or six and a half per cent, upon the whole 
expense of building, may perhaps afford a sufficient 
profit to the builder. When the market rate of in- 
terest is five per cent., it may perhaps require se- 
ven or seven and a half per cent. If in proportion 
to the interest of money the trade of a builder af- 
fords at any time a much greater profit than this, it 
will soon draw so much capital from other trades 
as will reduce the profit to its proper level. If it 
affords at any time much less than this, other trades 
will soon draw so much capital from it as will 
again raise that profit.* 

Now, when Dr. Smith asserts, that the trade of 
a builder under the circumstances supposed will 
draw capital from other trades, he is not stating a 
physical fact which will take place in consequence 
of some material attraction, but he is laying down 

* Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. 2. 



THE PRECEDING CHAPTER. 193 

a result which will ensue from the known princi- 
ples of the human mind, or in other words, from 
motives acting on society with certainty and pre- 
cision. The secession of capital from other trades 
is not a mechanical effect, like the motion of water 
to its level, but the consequence of a number of 
voluntary actions. It is an event which is produced 
through the medium of the wills of human beings, 
although we reason upon it with as much certainty 
as on the tendency of water to an equilibrium. 

In employing such figurative expressions as these, 
ill exalting trade and capital into spontaneous agents, 
and investing them with certain qualities and ten- 
dencies, we are apt to be deceived by our own lan- 
guage; to imagine that we have stated the whole 
of the truth, and to lose sight of all those mental 
operations concerned in the result which we so 
concisely express. Let us reflect for a moment on 
all the intellectual and moral processes which lie 
hid under the metaphorical description of the trade 
of a builder drawing capital from other trades. To 
produce this result, the fact must transpire that the 
trade is more than ordinarily lucrative ; this cir- 
cumstance must excite the cupidity or emulation 
of a number of individuals ; these individuals must 
deliberate on the prudence or propriety of embark- 
ing in it; they must resolve upon their measures ; 
they must take steps for borrowing money, or with- 
draw capital before appropriated to other purposes 
17 



194 ILLUSTRATIONS. 

and apply it to this ; in doing which, they will pro- 
bably have to enter into bargains, make sales, draw 
bills, and perform a hundred other voluntary ac- 
tions ; the result of all which operations will be the 
employment of a greater portion of the labour of 
the community in building than formerly, and a 
smaller portion in other pursuits ; and all these with 
a number of other occurrences are masked under 
the phrase of one trade drawing capital from an- 
other. 

It is the same throughout the whole science of 
political economy. The rise and fall of prices, the 
fluctuations in exchange, the vicissitudes of supply 
and demand, the return of excessive issues of paper 
on the bankers, the disappearance of specie, the 
depreciation of the currency, and various other 
events, are to be traced to certain determinate 
causes acting with regularity on the wills of bodies 
of men : all these phrases are in fact expressions of 
the results of voluntary actions. Such circumstances 
furnish as striking instances of perfect vaticination 
with regard to the determinations of the will as any 
that can be produced from physical science. Poli- 
tical economy is in a great measure an inquiry into 
the operation of motives, and proceeds on the prin- 
ciple that the volitions of mankind are under the 
influence of precise and ascertainable causes. 



CHAPTER VII. 



ON THE UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION AS THE FUNDA- 
MENTAL PRINCIPLE OF PHYSICAL AND MORAL EVI- 
DENCE. 

It is manifest from the foregoing representations, 
that it is solely by assuming the uniformity of causa- 
tion that we can penetrate into the future. Without 
this assumption we could not predict the commonest 
occurrence, nor calculate on any property of mind 
or of matter. Every prediction and every calcula- 
tion on the future is in fact an inference from causes 
to effects, and implies two things : first, a knowledge 
of the past sequences of causes and effects ; and, 
secondly, an assumption that the same sequences 
will take place hereafter. This is the only kind of 
vaticination or foresight which we can conceive. 

It is the same assumption of the uniformity of 
causation which enables us to penetrate into the 
past. But in doing this we evidently reverse the 
proceeding. Instead of inferring effects from their 
causes, we in the first instance at least infer causes 
from their effects — a process which implies the 
same knowledge of the sequences of events, and 



196 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

also an assumption that those sequences have al- 
ways been the same. We can ascertain past events 
which we have not ourselves witnessed, only by 
tracing their connection with present circumstances ; 
nor can we proceed a step in this without assuming 
that like effects have had like causes. 

In w r hat may be called physical evidence the 
process is very clear and simple. Suppose, for in- 
stance, that travelling through a newly discovered 
country I come to a deserted and dilapidated build- 
ing. I infer with all the unconsciousness and in- 
stantaneousness of instinct that it was built by 
human beings. I enter: 1 perceive a chimney 
blackened by smoke, and I find long rank grass 
growing in the roofless apartments; from which 
circumstances 1 conclude that the tenants of the 
building w 7 ere in the habit of using fire, and that it 
has not been recently occupied. In all this it is 
obvious that I assume at every step the uniformity 
of causation in the past. How can I tell that the 
structure has been the work of men? Plainly, be- 
cause I have seem men, and men only, construct 
similar edifices, and a similar effect must have had 
a similar cause. Deprive me of this latter principle, 
let similar effects be supposed to proceed from 
dissimilar causes, and I cannot make a single in- 
ference : the structure may have been the work of 
birds, it may have sprung like a mushroom from 
the earth, or fallen like a shower from the sky. 



THE BASIS OF EVIDENCE. 197 

In all other cases of physical evidence, the pro- 
cedure of the mind is, in the first instance,* a sim- 
ple inference from present appearances to the 
causes which produced them. One of the most 
striking examples of this kind of evidence is fur- 
nished by the science of geology, in which, from 
the phenomena presented by the ante-diluvial strata 
of the earth, the philosopher infers the past occur- 
rence of events concerning which the voice of his- 
tory is totally silent. Here, where not a whisper 
of human testimony is heard, we perceive the na- 
ture of physical evidence in its naked and undis- 
guised form ; and we cannot fail to discern, that 
every step of our reasonings from it is an ascent 
from present phenomena to their causes, involving 
the principle of uniform causation. 

But it is only a small part of our knowledge of 

* I say in the first instance, because, after having inferred a 
past cause from any present phenomenon, we may descend 
from that cause to other effects of which we have no direct 
evidence. Thus in the science of geology, we infer from the 
appearance of certain strata that they were deposited by water ; 
and when we have thus established the agency of water, we 
may proceed to deduce many other necessary effects which 
must have resulted from it. In this way we reason from effect 
to cause and from cause to effect ; but in every case which re- 
fers to past events, our inferences commence by the former, 
namely, by reasoning from present phenomenon to their causes ; 
and whichever we do, the same assumption is involved in the 
process. 

17* 



193 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

past events which we gather from physical evidence. 
By far the most important source of information 
to such events is the testimony of human beings ; 
and it is a curious, interesting, and momentous in- 
quiry, whether we proceed on the same principle 
when we avail ourselves of this moral evidence to 
penetrate into the past, as when we make use of 
that which is of a purely physical character. 

Testimony must be either oral or written, As 
far as the mere physical circumstances are concern- 
ed, we evidently commence our use of it by rea- 
soning from effects to causes. We infer, for example, 
that the writing before us has been the work of 
some human being, in doing which we of course 
assume the uniformity of causation. If from the cir- 
cumstances attending the testimony we infer that it 
is entitled to be received as veracious ; if, for in- 
stance, we find that it has proceeded from a man of 
tried integrity, and who acted under the influence 
of motives which render it unlikely that he should 
deceive, our inference still proceeds on the assump- 
tion of the same principle. I may have in other 
cases found these circumstances to have been the 
precursors or causes of true testimony ; but how 
can I or any one tell that they have operated in 
the same way in the instance before me ? The re- 
ply must evidently be, that it is impossible to avoid 
assuming that the same causes have invariably the 
same effects. 



THE BASIS OF EVIDENCE. 199 

In fact, if we examine any of the rules which 
have been laid down for the reception of testimony, 
or any of those marks which have been pointed out 
as enabling us to judge of its credibility, we shall 
find them all involving the uniformity of causation, 
It is allowed on all hands, that the concurrence of 
a number of witnesses in the same assertion, their 
reputation for veracity, the fact of the testimony 
being against their own interest,the probability of de- 
tection in any false statements, are all circumstances 
enhancing the credibility of what they affirm. These 
are considered as general principles on the subject 
gathered from experience, and w 7 e apply them in- 
stinctively to any new case which may be present- 
ed to us, either in the course of our own observation, 
or as having taken place at some former period. 
But it is obvious from what has just been said, that 
unless we assume a uniformity in the succession of 
causes and effects, we cannot transfer our experi- 
ence from any one case to another. That cer- 
tain circumstances have produced true testimony 
in one or a hundred instances, can be no reason 
why they should produce it in a different instance, 
unless we assume that the same causes have neces- 
sarily the same effects. 

It is clearly shown by this reasoning, that in the 
reception of testimony and the use of physical evi- 
dence we proceed on the same principle. But in 
the case of testimony there is a peculiarity not be- 



200 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

longing to physical evidence. In the former we 
not only have certain effects from which it is our 
task to infer the causes, or certain causes from 
which to infer the effects ; as when we judge the 
writing before us to have been the work of some 
human being, or the testimony to be true on ac- 
count of the circumstances under which it was 
given ; but the testimony itself consists of the as- 
sertion of facts, and the nature of the facts asserted 
often forms part of the grounds on which the vera- 
city of the testimony is determined : it frequently 
happens, that while external circumstances tend to 
confirm the testimony, the nature and circumstan- 
ces of the facts attested render it highly improbable 
that any such facts should have taken place, and 
these two sets of circumstances may be so exactly 
equivalent as to leave the mind in irremediable 
doubt. In the consideration of both, however, the 
same assumption is involved. We think the facts 
improbable, because we have found them rarely 
occurring under the circumstances stated ; we think 
the testimony likely to be true, because we have 
generally found true testimony to proceed from 
witnesses acting under the influence of similar 
motives, and what w T e have found to happen in other 
cases we are irresistibly led to conclude must also 
happen in the case before us. 

The opposition of the circumstances of the evi- 
dence and the nature of the facts may be carried 



THE BASIS OF EVIDENCE. 201 

still further. Assertions are frequently made which 
in themselves imply a breach of the uniformity of 
causation. From such cases the conclusions al- 
ready established remove all difficulty. To weigh 
probabilities, to determine what credit is due to 
two sets of conflicting circumstances, neither of 
which as far as our knowledge extends is irrecon- 
cilable to the usual course of nature, is often a nice 
and arduous task ; but if the principles of this essay 
are correct, it is easy to see what reception ought 
to be given to assertions professedly implying .a de- 
viation from the uniform succession of causes and 
effects. 

Suppose, for instance, any person to affirm that 
he had exposed a cubic inch of ice to a tempera- 
ture of 200 degrees of Fahrenheit, and that at the 
expiration of an hour it had retained its solidity. 
Here is a sequence of events asserted which is 
entirely at variance with the admitted course of 
nature ; and the slightest reflection is sufficient to 
show that to believe the assertion would involve a 
logical absurdity. The intrinsic discrepancy of the 
facts could never be overcome by any possible 
proofs of the truth of the testimony. 

For let us put the strongest case imaginable ; let 
us suppose that the circumstance of the ice remain- 
ing unmelted, rests on the concurrent testimony of 
a great number of people, people too of reputation, 
science, and perspicacity, who had no motive for 



202 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

falsehood, who had discernment to perceive and 
honesty to tell the real truth, and whose interests 
would essentially suffer from any departuie from 
veracity. Under such circumstances false testi- 
mony it may be alleged is impossible. 

Now mark the principle on which this repre- 
sentation proceeds. Let us concede the positions, 
that what is attested by a great number of wit- 
nesses must inevitably be true, — that people of 
reputation and intelligence without any apparent 
motive for falsehood are invariably accurate in 
their testimony, — and that they are above all inca- 
pable of violating truth, when a want of veracity 
would be ruinous to their interests. Granting all 
this, I ask the objector, how he knows that these 
things are so ; that men of this character and in 
these circumstances speak truth? He will reply 
that he has invariably found them to act in this 
manner : but why, because you have found them 
to act in this manner in a few or even in many 
cases, within your own experience or in the ex- 
perience of ages, do you conclude that they have 
acted so in all cases and in the case before us ? 
The only answer is, thpt it is impossible not to 
take for granted, that in precisely similar circum- 
stances Similar results will ensue, or that like causes 
hare always like effects. 

Thus on the ground of the uniformity of causa- 
tion, he would be maintaining the competency of 



THE BASTS OF EVIDENCE. 203 

testimony to prove a fact which implies a deviation 
from that uniformity. 

It is true that the one case relates to a physical 
and the other to a moral event; and it is barely 
possible that some one may contend that the uni- 
formity of causation in material is inferior to that 
in mental changes. 

To refute such an objection, I should have to re- 
verse the train of argument by which 1 endeavour- 
ed to show in a former chapter that the uniformity 
of causation is the same in both. I had there to 
prove that the greater uncertainty which is suppos- 
ed to characterise mental phenomena, is merely 
the uncertainty of our own knowledge ; but in re- 
futing the objection at present under notice, I 
should have to prove that there is no greater uni- 
formity of causation in voluntary actions than in 
physical events, which is surely a superfluous un- 
dertaking. 

It is indeed curious enough, that if any one should 
choose to exalt the evidence of testimony above 
physical evidence, he would have the difficult task 
of proving that this uniformity is superior in volun- 
tary actions. For testimony is in all cases a volun- 
tary act or the result of volition, implying the 
previous operation of motives. If a person as- 
serts that he has witnessed a particular event, he 
must be actuated by some motive or other to make 
the assertion. Suppose this motive invariably to 



J04 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

be a desire to disclose the truth, accompanied by 
the requisite knowledge ; we should then confident- 
ly rely upon hearing the truth whenever any hu- 
man being opened his lips. But it is evident that 
our confidence would be in no respect greater than 
that which we should feel with regard to the melt- 
ing of ice when placed in the fire, or the sinking of 
lead when thrown into the sea. If testimony were 
uniformly true, its truth could not rank higher in 
point of certainty than any other ascertained fact 
in nature ; or in other words, there could be no rea- 
son why it should produce a greater degree of 
certainty in our understandings. 
I These considerations appear to establish the 
important rule, that no testimony can prove any 
deviation from the known sequences of cause and 
effect, or that at any time similar effects have 
not had similar causes or similar causes, similar 
effects. 

In the strongest conceivable case, the argument 
of an advocate for the power of testimony to prove 
such deviations would be this : " It is impossible 
that human testimony should not be true in these 
circumstances, because its falsity would be contrary 
to the principles of human nature ; that is, it would 
imply a deviation from that sequence of motives 
and voluntary actions which has invariably been 
observed." 

But on precisely the same ground he ought to 



THE BASIS OF EVIDENCE. 206 

maintain that the circumstances attested could not 
take place, because they are contrary to the laws of 
the material world, unless it can be shown, as I 
have before remarked, that the certainty or uni- 
formity of causation in voluntary actions is greater 
than in physical events. 

The rule now laid down, is in fact that bv 
which mankind are universally though perhaps not 
consciously nor uniformly glided. Let us take 
another 'case as an illustration. If a number of 
men were to swear that they had seen the mercury 
of a barometer remain at the height of 30 inches 
when placed in the exhausted receiver of an air- 
pump, their testimony would be instantly rejected. 
The universal conclusion would be that such an 
event was impossible. To justify the rejection of 
the evidence, it would not be necessary to account 
for the origin of so extraordinary a statement, or 
to trace the concatenation of motives in the minds 
of those who asserted its truth. The motives of 
the witnesses might be quite inconceivable, there 
might be no apparent advantage to any of them in 
hazarding a falsehood : on the contrary, their rank 
in life, their reputation, their habits of integrity, 
the disgraceful consequences of detection, might 
appear irresistible dissuasives from a course of de- 
ceit. But although these circumstances might con- 
cur in rendering their veracity probable, no man 
of science would listen to their evidence. People 
18 



206 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

might be perplexed to account for their conduct, 
but all would agree as to the credit due to their 
statements. 

It may be asked, why reject the testimony 
rather than admit the fact, when the former equally 
implies a deviation from the uniform sequence of 
causes and effects? If the circumstances of the 
witnesses are such as always give rise to true testi- 
mony, then to consider their evidence as false is to 
admit, that the same causes do not always produce 
the same effects. 

The answer to this objection is not difficult. If 
the rejection and the admission of the testimony 
equally implied a deviation from the uniform se- 
quence of causes and effects, there could be no 
reason for either rejecting or admitting it; for 
every reason which can be assigned why any past 
event should be regarded as having taken place in- 
volves the uniformity of causation. But the rejec- 
tion of the testimony is not in this predicament. 
The causes of testimony, or in other words those 
considerations which operate upon the mind of the 
witness, cannot always be ascertained ; and as we 
are uncertain as to the causes in operation we 
cannot be certain of the effects ; we cannot be 
sure that the circumstances of the witness are such 
as have before given rise to true testimony, and 
consequently we cannot be sure that the testimony 
is true. To reject testimony, therefore, in any case 



THE BASIS OF EVIDENCE. 207 

where it is brought to establish a professed devia- 
tion from the uniform sequence of causes and 
effects, can never imply a departure from that uni- 
formity, white to admit it would by the supposition 
necessarily involve one. It may be remarked 
further, that many of the sequences of cause and 
effect in the material world are so simple, that we 
may at any time verify them by experiment, which 
can seldom be done with regard to moral events, 
such as testimony, the result of complex causes. 
Whether ice will melt in the fire, or whether mer- 
cury will remain at a height of 30 inches in the 
exhausted receiver of an air-pump, I can try at 
pleasure ; but I cannot place a witness under the 
influence of any assigned combination of circum- 
stances, for the purpose of trying whether they will 
cause him to speak truth. The sequence which is 
thus perfectly ascertained can never be invalidated 
by one which is doubtful. 

A still closer argument may be employed. 
Should any man affirm himself to have been an 
eye-witness of any event contrary to the usual suc- 
cession of causes and effects, such as those above 
adduced, I might consistently reply to him in the 
following terms : " I have no grounds whatever for 
believing what you say. You assert that an event 
has taken place quite at variance with the observed 
course of nature; but if I once give up the unifor- 
mity of causation or of the laws of nature, 1 may 



208 UNIFORMITY OF CAUSATION 

account for what I hear by supposing that your 
senses have deceived you, or that your tongue utters 
words which you do not intend, or that my ears 
have acquired the property of changing the sounds 
transmitted to them ;■' or any other mutation which 
it is possible to conceive. Without this principle 
I should be abandoned to the utmost license of 
conjecture and scepticism, nor could I possibly 
have any reason for supposing one of these events 
to have taken place rather than another, be- 
cause every reason that could be assigned would 
necessarily imply the principle which 1 had dis- 
carded. 

In a former chapter I endeavoured to prove, that 
the uniformity of causation could not be established 
by testimony, because testimony reaches only a 
limited number of events ; and our reception of it, 
as the present chapter has more largely shown, 
proceeds on the assumption of that uniformity 
which it was supposed capable of proving. But it 
is obvious to remark, that if testimony on this ac- 
count is not capable of proving the uniformity of 
causation, it cannot prove the contrary ; if we ne- 
cessarily assume this principle antecedent to all 
testimony and in the reception of testimony itself, 
we cannot subsequently discard it on the strength 
of the same species of evidence. The illustration 
of this remark, however, would only lead to a re- 
petition of what has been already advanced. 



THE BASIS OF EVIDENCE. 209 

In saying that by far the most important kind of 
evidence is the testimony of human beings, I ought 
to have qualified the observation by stating, that the 
proofs of the being of a God all belong to that class 
of evidence which I have termed physical. It is 
not human testimony but physical evidence, which 
points to the existence of a Supreme Intelligence ; 
and it is worthy of particular remark, that every 
argument adduced from the appearances of design 
in the works of nature, from the exquisite contri- 
vances which overpower us with admiration, is an 
obvious instance of the unavoidable assumption that 
like effects must have had like causes. Renounce 
this principle, and how would it be possible to infer 
from the most admirable appearances of design, 
that they have been the production of an intelligent 
cause ? 

In vain would the philosopher point out in any 
organized body the admirable correspondence of 
means to ends, the nice adaptation of one expedi- 
ent to meet an inconvenience and another to secure 
an advantage, the happy disposition of parts, and the 
harmonious operation of the whole, unless we could 
be sure of the truth, that similar effects must have 
had similar causes, and that consequently successful 
contrivances to produce happiness and obviate 
misery, could proceed from no other source than a 
wise and benevolent Author. 
18* 



CHAPTER VIII. 



ON POSSIBILITY, PROBABILITY, AND THEIR OPPOSITES. 

The term uncertainty has already been explained 
in another chapter in, which I endeavoured to show- 
that it designated a state of the mind, not an attri- 
bute of events. A similar observation may be made 
with regard to the words probability, possibility, 
and their opposites ; important terms which 1 have 
hitherto employed without explanation, because I 
considered that their real signification would be 
necessarily brought out by the preceding discus- 
sions. 

It is worthy of particular notice, that we apply 
these terms in common to the past and the future. 
We speak of the probability of a circumstance re- 
lated of Miltiades or Julius Caesar, as well as of the 
probability of an event which is looked for to-mor- 
row. As to the past, it requires no argument to 
prove that a certain succession or train of events 
has taken place, which from the nature of the case 
cannot be altered, and which may be said to form 
an immutable object of knowledge. It follows con- 



ON POSSIBILITY. 211 

sequently, that if with regard to the past we make 
use of any terms implying dubiousness or uncer- 
tainty, such terms have no relation to the events 
themselves, but to our acquaintance with them. 
When we speak of past circumstances as possible 
or impossible, probable or improbable, we are only 
expressing the degree of our knowledge. 

The term possible, evidently implies a defect of 
knowledge on our part. It implies in fact that we 
are not acquainted with all the antecedents of that 
event to which we apply the epithet. We are told, 
for instance, that a man B fell from his horse yes- 
terday morning at eight o'clock, and we pronounce 
such an accident possible, because we are not ac- 
quainted with any circumstances irreconcilable with 
it, nor is any such circumstance assigned by the 
narrator. But the report is false ; the event has not 
taken place, and had we known the whole preced- 
ing circumstances relating to B up to the hour 
specified, we should have pronounced the accident 
impossible : we should have found, perhaps, that B 
had indeed mounted his horse, but also that his 
body was all the time in a position utterly incom- 
patible with his falling, so that his keeping his seat 
was the necessary consequence of the causes in 
operation. 

That event therefore to us is possible which 
contradicts not our experience, in as far as we are 
acquainted with the circumstances attending it, or 



212 ON POSSIBILITY, PROBABILITY, 

in other words, which does not imply any deviation 
from the uniform sequence of causes and effects. 

This brings us to the signification of impossible, 
when that term is used in reference to the succes- 
sion of events. An event is impossible which con- 
tradicts our experience, or which implies that the 
same causes have produced different effects, or the 
same effects been preceded by different causes. 
While the term possibility implies a defect of know- 
ledge on our part, impossibility implies no defect, 
but on the contrary complete knowledge of the 
succession of causes and effects. Thus when we 
pronounce that it was impossible for a piece of ice 
to remain in the midst of burning coals without 
being dissolved, our conclusion involves a complete 
knowledge of this particular effect of fire on ice, as 
well as the assumption that what has taken place in 
our own experience must always have occurred 
under precisely the same circumstances. 

Jf I am not greatly deceived, the acutest rea- 
soner, the closest thinker, the most subtile analyser 
of words will find himself unable to produce any 
other meaning of the term impossible than that 
which is here assigned to it.* 

* There is another use of the word impossible in the sense 
of self-contradictory. For instance, it is said to be impossible 
to make a true circle whose radii shall be unequal. Such im- 
possibilities would, as several philosophers have remarked, be 
more properly styled self-contradictions. Analysis carried 



AND THEIR OPPOSITES. 213 

When any event is rumoured to have happened, 
and we pronounce the rumour to be untrue and the 
event impossible ; or when any circumstance is well 
attested, and we pronounce it impossible that the 
evidence should be false, what is the real amount 
of our words ? In what consists the impossibility? 
On what principle does our judgment proceed? 

If the impossibility does not consist in the event 
involving a deviation from the uniformity of causa- 
tion, if our judgment proceeds on any other princi- 
ple than this, let the essence of the impossibility, let 
the real principle of our judgment be exhibited. 
Let us see what other explanation of this important 
term can be given. 

In the mean time, when we are referring to the 
succession of events, we may consider impossible 
and involving a deviation from the uniform succes- 
sion of causes and effects, as convertible terms or 
synonymous expressions. " It is impossible for ice 
to remain in the fire unmelted," is just the same 
proposition as " the continuance of ice in the fire 
unmelted involves a violation of the uniformity of 
causation. " How many perplexing difficulties 
w 7 ould be solved and controversies determined by 
the simple substitution of one of these phrases for 
the other ! 

farther than I have at present occasion to push it, might proba- 
bly show that all impossibility, and amongst the rest that here 
treated of, involves a contradiction of ideas. 



214 ON POSSIBILITY, PROBABILITY, 

The term probability will not detain us long. It 
necessarily implies a deficiency of knowledge, since, 
if we knew all the circumstances connected with 
an event alleged to have taken place, we should 
know w T hether or not it had happened, and we 
should not regard it with any uncertainty. The 
circumstances connected with an event may be 
either such as precede or such as follow it, or in 
other words they may be either causes or effects. 
If we knew the whole of the causes in operation at 
the time the event is alleged to have taken place, 
we could with certainty infer the effect, or whe- 
ther the event took place or did not : or if we 
knew the whole of the circumstances succeeding 
that time we could also determine the matter. 
Probability therefore can only have place when but 
part of these preceding and succeeding circum- 
stances are known, and will be greater or less ac- 
cording to the number of them with which we are 
acquainted. 

According to this explanation, an event is proba- 
ble when we are acquainted with a number of cir- 
cumstances preceding and succeeding, which must 
have happened had the event taken place; and it is 
improbable when we are acquainted with a number 
of such circumstances, which must have happened 
had the alleged event not taken place ; or perhaps 
probability may be said to consist in the prepon- 
derance of the former kind of circumstances over 



AND THEIR 0PP0S1TES. 215 

the latter, and improbability of the preponderance 
of the latter over the former. 

Probability could not evidently be attributed to 
any events unless they proceeded from regular 
causes and produced regular effects. To us they 
are probable because we know some but not all 
the circumstances connected with them ; but as al- 
though we knew all the circumstances we could not 
be sure of the events without assuming the unifor- 
mity of causation, so if we know only a part of the 
circumstances we cannot regard the events as pro- 
bable without the same assumption. Thus whether 
the preceding definition of probability is sufficiently 
comprehensive and accurate or not, it is plain, that 
whenever we employ the term we necessarily as- 
sume the principle of uniformity. The argument 
may be put in a somewhat different shape. An 
event is asserted to be probable. Why ? Because 
certain circumstances have happened which always 
accompany such an event. But why should those 
circumstances be considered as rendering the event 
probable in the instance in question ? They have, 
it is true, in other cases been found to constitute 
grounds of probability, but why should they con- 
tinue to do so in the present instance ? JSo answer 
can be given, but that we unavoidably assume the 
occurrence of similar results in similar cases. 

We have hitherto considered these terms as ap- 
plied to the past, and it requires little illustration 



216 ON POSSIBILITY, PROBABILITY, &C. 

to show that they have the same meaning when 
applied to the future. 

In speculating on the future, we consider that to 
be possible which is not at variance with the known 
sequences of events ; that to be impossible which 
implies a deviation from them. No prediction 
would be listened to a moment which involved an 
incompatibility with that assumption of the unifor- 
mity of nature, which is identified with all our 
mental operations, and without which foresight and 
prediction could not have place. Probability and 
improbability, when applied to the future, have also 
the same signification as when applied to the past, 
and imply an acquaintance with part only of those 
circumstances, a knowledge of the whole of which 
would give us the power of unerring and positive 
prediction. 



CHAPTER IX. 



ON NECESSITY. 



In a former chapter we have remarked, that the 
fact of our assuming the uniformity of causation in 
mental as well as physical events, appears to settle 
the question respecting the necessity of human ac- 
tions. 

The regular sequence of causes and effects seems 
to be all that is implied in the word necessary. 
From the disputes nevertheless, which have arisen 
with regard to the necessity of human actions, it is 
evident that the term has been used in a vague or 
ambiguous manner. On a close investigation, I 
think it will be found that this word has been em- 
ployed in three different senses unconsciously and 
without discrimination: 

1. In the sense already explained to denote the 
uniform connection of cause and effect. 

2 e As the opposite of the word voluntary, or in 
other words, either in the negative sense of being 
independent of the will, or in the positive sense of 
being against or in opposition to the will. 

3. To denote the circumstance of our being able 
19 



218 ON NECESSITY. 

to trace an effect to its causes. That which we can 
refer to its causes we frequently term necessary, 
while that which we are not able to trace to its 
causes we call contingent. 

1. In the first of these senses, no one can deny 
the necessity of human actions without inconsisten- 
cy. That there is a uniformity of causation in 
mental as well as physical events, in the determina- 
tions of the will as well as in the operations of the 
intellect ; that we unavoidably assume this unifor- 
mity and perpetually act on the assumption ; are 
facts which have already been established in the 
preceding chapters. If then this is the meaning of 
those who assert the necessity of human actions ; 
if they simply intend to express that voluntary ac- 
tions follow their causes with the same regularity 
which prevails in the changes of the material world, 
no one can refuse to admit the proposition without 
contradicting a principle of his own mental consti- 
tution. 

2. With regard to the second meaning of the 
term, it is scarcely requisite to make a remark. If 
by necessary we mean the opposite of voluntary, 
then to call voluntary actions necessary would be 
absurd. This is an absurdity perhaps never com- 
mitted by the advocates of the doctrine of neces- 
sity, but it is one often virtually imputed to them by 
their opponents. 

3. If by the term necessary we mean to denote 



ON NECESSITY. 219 

those events which can be clearly traced to their 
causes, and thus become the objects of unerring 
prediction, and if by contingent we mean to de- 
note those events, the causes of which lie hid from 
our scrutiny, then voluntary actions like physical 
events are of both kinds, some are necessary and 
some contingent, and in the progress of knowledge 
many of the latter are gradually passing into the 
former. 

In this sense the term necessary coincides with 
the term certain, explained in a preceding chapter, 
and has relation merely to the state of our know- 
ledge, not to any quality in the events themselves. 
Our incapability of assigning the causes of any 
effect, or predicting the effects of any cause, can in 
no way alter the connection between them. 

It appears from this examination as if there could 
be no dispute at all in reference to any propositions 
depending on the term necessary, so long as it was 
exclusively employed in any one of the three ac- 
ceptations here pointed out; and of any other 
meaning than these three it seems difficult to form 
a conception. It is to be suspected therefore, that 
the differences on this subject have arisen from 
sometimes attaching one and sometimes another of 
these meanings to the word, and to other equivalent 
expressions, and also from a similar vacillation in 
the use of the antagonist phrases. 

There is one prevalent fallacy which could never 



220 ON NECESSITY. 

have been supported a moment had there been 
strict precision in the employment of terms. It 
consists in asserting that voluntary actions are not 
necessary, because in every case the agent might 
have acted differently. This is in fact at the bottom 
using necessary as the opposite of voluntary, and 
then asserting the consequent truism, that what 
depends on the will is not necessary. But the fal- 
lacy deserves a more detailed exposure. Suppose 
then some one to assert that his voluntary actions 
are not necessary, because in every conceivable 
case he might have acted otherwise. We must in 
the first place ascertain the meaning of the expres- 
sion " might," and a little consideration will show 
it to imply an alteration in the conditions of the 
action. The full meaning is that he might have 
acted otherwise had he pleased, which is only as- 
serting that had antecedent circumstances been 
different a different effect would have followed. It 
is in truth an assertion of the necessity of the same 
result in the same circumstances ; for in order to 
conceive a different result he is obliged to suppose 
an alteration in the cause. His being pleased to do 
the action was the necessary condition to its being 
done. Had he pleased to do some other action, that 
other action w r ould have followed. 

Should it be still alleged that his being pleased 
was his own doing, it may be replied that it was 
certainly an event which took place in his own 



ON NECESSITY. 221 

mind, if that is what it is intended to say: but in 
genera], when we speak of any thing being our own 
doing, we mean that it was our voluntary act. Now 
in no sense can his being pleased to do a thing be 
said to be his voluntary act, for if we trace what 
passes in the case of every voluntary action we 
shall find three things : 

1. Certain ideas are presented to the mind. 

2. The mind is brought into the state of willing 
or being pleased to do something; which is gene- 
rally if not always in the first instance a movement 
of the muscles. 

3. The movement follows, or the thing is done, 
and this third event is that which we term a volun- 
tary action. 

If this is a correct account of the successive steps 
essential to a voluntary action, then to say that 
being pleased to do a thing is itself a voluntary 
action, is to say that an effect is its own cause. We 
call an action voluntary because it follows that state 
of mind which we designate by the expression being 
pleased to do the action, and consequently to apply 
the same epithet to the state of mind itself would 
be to assert that being pleased was the consequen ce 
of being pleased. It will be seen from all this, that 
when any one maintains voluntary actions not to 
be necessary because he might have acted other- 
wise had he pleased, his proposition merely asserts 
that a different result would have happened under 

19* 



222 ON NECESSITY. 

different circumstances ; and proves in fact the im- 
possibility of conceiving any event to have been 
otherwise than what it was, except on the supposi- 
tion of a change in the causes. The assertion is a 
proof that voluntary actions are. necessary in the 
only sense affixed to it by any one who understands 
the subject, namely in the sense of depending on 
regular causes; for he is compelled to suppose a 
change of causes in order to suppose a change of 
effect, — a procedure evidently implying that while 
the causes are the same the same effect cannot be 
different. 

It is obvious that in such fallacies as this there is 
an inveterate supposition, that by the term neces- 
sity is meant something acting in opposition to the 
will, and obliging us to perform actions at variance 
with it; and it is not surprising that under this sup- 
position the doctrine of necessity should have ap- 
peared inconsistent with our own consciousness. 
But when the term necessity is kept strictly to one 
meaning, when it is used to denote simply the con- 
nectionof causes and effects, and all that the doc- 
trine asserts is shown to be that the state of mind 
termed willing, or being pleased to do a thing, is 
an effect of regular causes, every semblance of in- 
consistency with personal consciousness vanishes. 
All that we can in any case be conscious of is, in 
the first place, the occurrence of a smaller or greater 
number of views or considerations, some perhaps 



ON NECESSITY. 223 

inclining us to act one way and some another, and in 
the second place the power of doing as we please. 
In this there is nothing in the slightest degree in- 
compatible with the doctrine of causation. The 
occurrence of certain views of considerations to 
the mind is one link in the chain of moral causation, 
which the advocate of philosophical necessity can- 
not be supposed to deny, — nor does he refuse to 
admit, nay he insists in its fullest sense on the con- 
sciousness of the power of doing as we please. 
We always are conscious of the power, and always 
exercise the power of doing as we please in things 
depending on the will; but why are we pleased to 
do one thing rather than another ? This is an effect 
which by the constitution of our nature we pro- 
nounce must have a cause ; and all that the philoso- 
pher asserts is that there is a cause or combination 
of causes, which in every case brings the mind into 
the state of being pleased. This cause or combi- 
nation of causes cannot always be assigned, but 
there are thousands of instances in which the con- 
nection of the cause and the state of mind is so 
completely ascertained, that we do not hesitate to 
infer one from the other. 

In judging of human nature we are obviously 
guided partly by our own consciousness and partly 
by our experience of mankind. Both are often 
necessary for the establishment of a general truth , 
and they admirably unite in support of the doctrine 



224 ON NECESSITY, 

of philosophical necessity. We not only find from 
an examination of our own minds that it states no- 
thing at variance with what is passing there, but 
we see when we look abroad that the phenomena 
of human life are crowded with illustrations of its 
truth.* 

* It is no wonder that misconceptions of the doctrines of phi- 
losophical necessity are so prevalent, when such a writer as 
Dr. Coplestone has given the following' representation of it. 

"Let us now attend to the graver question, whether because 
God made the world and all things in it, therefore every thing 
that happens, human conduct as well as the rest, must be re- 
garded as proceeding from him, and determined beforehand by 
his direction, in all its detail. Whatever has been, is, or will 
be, could not, as some say, be otherwise. We, vain and insig- 
nificant creatures, full of our own importance, imagine that we 
act from ourselves, that we can deliberate, choose, reject, com- 
mand, forbid, contrive, hasten or hinder a thousand things, 
when in fact this is all delusion — all the creation of our own 
fancy. We are but members of the machine, like the rest ; and 
though we may please ourselves with thinking that we act an 
independent part, the real truth is, we have no voice, no power, 
no control in what is going on — all would take its course just 
the same, whether for good or for ill, were we to give ourselves 
no anxiety or concern whatever in the matter. Such, I believe, 
is a fair statement of the doctrine of philosophical necessity, or 
predestination, confined to this life." Inquiry into the Doctrines 
of Necessity and Predestination, p. 7. 

The author of the present treatise will not assert that Dr. 
Coplestone may not find some authorities for this representation 
in the multitude of writings on the subject of necessity ; but he 
will venture to say that there is scarcely a proposition in the 
whole passage, except perhaps the two first sentences, with 



ON NECESSITY. 225 

Self-introspection is in all cases an indispensable 
process for arriving at correct conclusions regard- 
ing the powers and principles of the human mind, 
but the facts which it presents are just as easily- 
connected with false inferences as any others. Of 
this the present subject yields an illustration, which 
is also a striking instance of a moral phenomenon 
more prevalent in the world than we are apt to 
suspect, the existence in the same understanding of 
two opinions mutually destructive, without any 
consciousness of their incompatibility. We frequent- 
ly find the same person denying the doctrine of the 
necessary determination of the will by the motives 
presented to it, and yet contending for the neces- 

which any necessarian who understands the question would 
agree. So far indeed from holding the opinions here imputed 
to him, he would maintain the reverse; he would maintain that 
we can and do deliberate, chouse, reject, command, forbid, con- 
trive, hasten or hinder a thousand things; that this is not de- 
lusion ; that deliberation, choice, rejection, are as real events 
as freezing, thawing, raining; that we have a voice, a power, a 
control in what is going on ; that instead of all pursuing its 
course just the same, were we to give ourselves no anxiety or 
concern whatever in the matter, this anxiety or concern is a 
necessary link in the chain, without which a totally different 
series of events must ensue ; that, in other words, if we did no* 
give ourselves any trouble about things, if we did not exercise 
a power and control over them, they could not possibly follow 
the same course as if we did, our being anxious or taking a con- 
cern or exercising a control in them being a condition, the ab- 
sence of which would necessarily modify the result. 



226 ON NECESSITY. 

sary truth of testimony in certain assignable circum- 
stances. 

It scarcely requires a word to show the incon- 
sistency of these two intellectual acts. Testimony, 
as we have before remarked, is the result of voli- 
tion; and to maintain that certain circumstances 
necessarily give rise to that sort of testimony which 
is true, is to maintain that the motives presented 
necessarily determine the witness to speak the 
truth. 

The origin of this inconsistency will, I think, be 
found in the appeal which men are apt to make in 
these cases to their own feelings. With regard to 
the first case, namely, the determination of the will 
by the motives presented to it, they are conscious 
that when any action is proposed to them they can 
decide as they please, and they therefore reject the 
idea of any necessity in their determinations. With 
regard to the second case, namely, the necessary 
truth of testimony in certain assignable circumstan- 
ces, their conclusion seems in the same way the 
result of an appeal to consciousness. They repre- 
sent to themselves all the strong motives constituted 
by those circumstances, and they feel that in such 
a situation they could not have uttered a syllable 
of falsehood. 

Hence it appears that the same appeal to con- 
sciousness results in two conclusions incompatible 
with each other ; the validity of the conclusion in 



ON NECESSITY. 227 

favour of the truth of testimony in certain assigna- 
ble circumstances, depends on the invalidity of the 
other conclusion, that there is no necessary deter- 
mination of the will. It is not, however, that men 
are in this case deceived in the facts. The incom- 
patibility of the results is owing to the fallacy of the 
inference, that because we are conscious of being 
able to do as we please, there is no necessity in our 
determinations, a fallacy itself proceeding on an 
erroneous interpretation of the principal term. 

There is also another intellectual phenomenon 
connected with the subject before us, which may 
perhaps be also referred to the habit of appealing 
to our own consciousness. Notwithstanding the 
universal and unavoidable assumption of the uni- 
formity of nature, there seems to be on some occa- 
sions in the minds of the ignorant, a more lively 
sense or deeper impression of the uniformity of cau- 
sation in motives and actions than in physical events, 
when these two are placed in opposition. 

For instance, a narrative relating events contra- 
ry to the laws of nature is received on the authority 
of men, whose interest, as far as we can discover, 
would naturally lead them to suppress it. Obloquy 
and threats and violence perhaps are in vain em- 
ployed to make them depart from their statement ; 
and although their story implies as palpable a vio- 
lation of the properties of matter, as that which in 
the extremest case the falsehood of their testimony 



228 ON NECESSITY. 

could possibly involve of the principles of humna 
nature, there is often a strong propensity to believe 
it. Men can scarcely imagine that any one should 
persevere in a false statement, in opposition to all 
the motives which urged him to abandon it. Less 
difficulty is found in conceiving an equal anomaly 
in physical events. It is probable that this partial 
leaning to the necessary operation of motives in 
such circumstances is to be accounted for, by the 
different kinds of mental reference employed in re- 
gard to the two classes of facts. In regard to moral 
facts we appeal to our own consciousness, whether 
such motives would not have had such effects, 
whether we ourselves could have persevered if the 
statement had not been true, and we feel intensely 
sensible of the impossibility of continued imposture. 
In regard to physical facts, on the other hand, we 
appeal to a less vivid principle, to our recollection. 
In the former case we appear to make an actual 
trial, we put the matter to the proof of our own 
sensibility ; in the latter we go through the cooler 
process of referring to knowledge previously ac- 
quired. 

Although this may explain why men have some- 
times a greater tendency to believe in the unifor- 
mity of moral than of physical events, it evidently 
furnishes no logical ground of preference, and the 
tendency itself manifests an obvious inconsistency. 
It is only too in particular circumstances, as for 



ON NECESSITY. 229 

instance when the evidence is vividly exhibited, or 
the mind is under the impresssion of deep preju- 
dices and feelings, that the phenomenon is observ- 
able. At other times the instinctive belief of the 
uniform sequence of physical causes and effects, is 
the source of that undefined and latent, but irrepres- 
sible scepticism, with which men in general regard 
every narrative asserting a deviation from the regu- 
lar course of nature. It is a remarkable fact, how- 
ever, in the history of the human mind, that while 
men speculatively reject the principle of uniformity 
in moral events, they should in some cases practi- 
cally ascribe greater force to it than to the unifor- 
mity of physical causation. 



20 



CHAPTER X. 



CONCLUSION. 



Man, it has been remarked, is placed on the nar- 
row isthmus of the present time, between the two 
oceans of the past and the future ; and I have en- 
deavoured to show the principle by the aid of which 
he sends his glances over both. 

All, in fact, that a man strictly speaking experi- 
ences relating to external things, are certain affec- 
tions of his bodily organs, and the rest of his know- 
ledge consists of inferences from these. Even in 
the instance of testimony oral or written, what he 
directly knows is in the one case a few sounds, and 
in the other certain affections of the organ of vision ; 
every thing beside may be said to be conclusions, 
however rapid, or habitual, or instantaneous, de- 
duced from these simple sensations ; and he can- 
not arrive at one of these conclusions without 
assuming the grand principle of the uniformity of 
causations. 

The assumption of this principle 1 have endea- 
voured to illustrate. 1 have shown that it enters 



CONCLUSION. 231 

into our reasonings on the past as well as into our 
speculations on the future ; that the truth assumed 
is not the result of personal experience, nor to be 
gathered from the testimony of others ; and that 
the assumption of it is involved in all our conclu- 
sions respecting moral and intellectual as well as 
physical phenomena. 

I have further endeavoured to show that uncer- 
tainty is a state of the mind, not an attribute of 
events ; and that whatever uncertainty we feel in 
regard to voluntary actions, is of the same kind and 
has the same origin as that which we feel in regard 
to physical occurrences ; and moreover that men's 
actions and speculations as constantly proceed on 
the expectation that certain acts will result from 
certain motives, as that certain effects will be pro- 
duced by physical causes. 

I have also entered expressly into the considera- 
tion of this assumption as involved in our reason- 
ings upon the past or our use of evidence, and 
shown, that as the whole of our inferences from 
the present to the past rest upon it, or in other 
words the whole of our knowledge of the past, we 
cannot discard it in any case without a logical ab- 
surdity. I have particularly applied this truth to 
the case of testimony; and in conclusion I have 
attempted to prove that the term impossible, when 
employed in reference to the succession of events, 

20* 



232 CONCLUSION. 

:an imply nothing but a deviation from the uni- 
formity of causes and effects, and that the term 
lecessary is merely expressive of that uniformity. 

Many of these are either striking truths in them- 
selves, or truths from which important conse- 
quences naturally flow. They seem to myself to 
3e principles which may be decisively applied to 
;he elucidation of doctrines hitherto obscurely un- 
lerstood, and to the determination of controversies 
ong vainly agitated. 

Amongst the important questions, the solution of 
which they comprehend, two deserve to be parti- 
:ularly distinguished. The first is the controversy 
3n the subject of philosophical necessity. The 
fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters will I apprehend 
be found to determine all that can be meant by 
this term, and its antagonist freedom of the will^ 
almost without any mention of either of those 
phrases ; and the chapter which is devoted ex- 
pressly to the subject will render this still more 
apparent. 

The other important question that may be cited 
as embraced by the doctrines in this Essay, regards 
the legitimate bounds of testimony. If the princi- 
ples laid down on this subject are correct, they 
release the mind at once from an overwhelming 
load of difficulty, and plainly define one of the true 
limits of that important species of evidence. If 



CONCLUSION. 233 

they are not correct, the plainness with which they 
are laid down will render their refutation an easy 
task, and facilitate the object w 7 hich this imperfect 
but maturely considered essay has had in view, — 
the establishment of truth in a momentous and 
difficult sphere of inquiry. 



THE END. 



By the same Author. 



1. ESSAYS ON THE FORMATION AND 
PUBLICATION OF OPINIONS. 

2. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION IN LI- 
TERARY SOCIETIES, on Political Economy, 
Politics, Morals, Metaphysics, Polite Literature, 
and other branches of Knowledge, with Remarks 
under each Question, original and selected. 

3. A CRITICAL DISSERTATION on the Na- 
ture, Measures, and Causes of VALUE; chiefly in 
reference to Mr. Ricardo and his Followers. 

4. A LETTER TO A POLITICAL ECO- 
NOMIST, occasioned by an article in the West- 
minster Review on the subject of Value. 



fc'340 2 









\\ 












o o x 



# 




Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Ox 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2004 

* PreservationTechnoh 

, A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESEI 
1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16C 
(724)779-2111 



"V 






& 



£ ^ 



\ ^. 



^ / 






- 


A * v "S 























^ v^ 











''■> 




? % 






M 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 175 535 1 



.JfiOOL 

111! 



Haw 



lr 



■ 

I 
■fa 

Ik 

Hi 

ilil 
1111 



Wim 






■ 



:! k 



mm 



